Straight knots

Abstract

Jablan and Radovi\'c originally defined two invariants called the Meander number and OGC number of knots for certain classes of knots. We generalize these definitions to all knots and name the straight number and contained straight number of a knot, respectively, and prove they are well defined. We answer two questions and prove a generalization of a conjecture of Jablan and Radovi\'c. We also give some relations to crossing number and petal number. Then we compute the straight numbers for all the knots in the standard knot table and present some interesting questions and the complete table of knots with 10 or fewer crossing and their straight number and contained straight number.