It's Knot an Unknot (or Not?)

A Brief Respite

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 04:34:00 +0000

Hi Guys,

Thanks for keeping up with my weekly posts!
So, at this point, it's time to start wrapping up my Senior Project.
It's been a truly great experience, and I've learned a lot about it

And, although it's not my last post, and I would not consider this project done yet, here's a link to my SRP presentation here.

Hope you guys enjoy, and keep up for possibly more posts in the near future!

- Alice

Hyperbolic Knots

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 13:31:00 +0000

Hi everyone! It's been a bit of time since my last post, but we'll be catching up on a lot.

In the last two weeks, we went over torus knots and satellite knots. As a brief review, these are, respectively, knots that are wrapped around a torus p times horizontally, q times vertically, and knots that are embedded into other knots. (For details, you can refer to the previous posts here and here.)

We mentioned prime and composite knots a while ago, and we said that composite knots were knots that could be created by composing two nontrivial knots, and prime knots were those that could not.

Interestingly enough, we find that all composite knots are satellite knots, while not the reverse is true. You might wonder: So what about prime knots?

That’s an excellent question, I’m glad you asked! Prime knots are more spread out, but, interestingly, most prime knots are hyperbolic knots. Which, incidentally, is our first topic today!

The formal definition of a hyperbolic knot is “a knot with a complement that can be given as a metric of constant curvature -1”.

What exactly does this mean?

First, let us review the definition of a metric, curvature, etc.

A “metric” is a way of measuring distance between two points. For example, the Euclidean metric is how we usually measure distance between two points, as depicted below (Remember the Pythagorean Theorem?).

In this case, we won’t be using the same Euclidean metric, but a hyperbolic metric.

To understand that, we’ll have to understand curvature. Curvature, much like it sounds, is a measure of much an object “curves.”

Let’s look at the three objects we have below.

Figure 1 - Different kinds of curvature.

Figure 2a - A sphere has positive curvature.

Figure 2b - A saddle-shape has negative curvature.

Figure 2c - A plane has 0 or flat curvature.

Figure 3 - The red is the arc going through the circle with endpoints P1, P2, and the yellow is the segment of the diameter going through P1, P2. (We're pretending here that you have two sets of points P1, P2)

Figure 4 - A Euclidean tetrahedron

Figure 5 - A hyperbolic tetrahedron

Figure 6 - Two different hyperbolic knots with different volumes.

Figure 7 - Two different hyperbolic knots with the same volume

The short answer is just that nobody does it by hand because it takes too long.

References:

If we pick a point on the first sphere shape, we see that if we draw cross sections through it, that all of these curve out in the same direction. Therefore, we say that it has positive curvature.

If we pick a point on the second saddle shape, we do the same to get that the curves are in different directions. Therefore, we say that it has negative curvature

Finally, on the last flat surface, if we attempt to do the same, the cross sections all result in lines. Therefore, we say that this has zero or flat curvature.

Now that we’ve established all of this, let’s go back to our original definition:

the hyperbolic knot is a knot with a complement that can be given as a metric of constant curvature -1.

Here, we have established that, for the complement of the knot, we’ll be using a hyperbolic space, particularly the hyperbolic three-space denoted as H3. Essentially, the points in this, instead of being linear coordinates, are points inside a unit ball, and is denoted as:

Now that we have established our space, we need to find our (nonlinear) distance-measuring metric.

Let us choose two points P1,P2 on the unit sphere. Let us draw a circle going through points P1, P2, where parts of the circle going into the unit sphere are perpendicular. We call arc C the arc of this circle with endpoints P1,P2, such that most of it is inside the unit sphere (aka, the red arc in the figure below).

If points P1, P2 lie on a diameter (any segment going through the center of the circle), then, instead, we let C be the part of the diameter between them (refer to the yellow line in the figure above).

We can then say, that there is only one path that fulfills each of these conditions.

Incidentally, in hyperbolic three-space, the shortest path between two points - let’s call it w for the sake of it - turns out to either be a straight line or an arc of a circle (Hint: one of what we just defined).

These turn out to all be geodesics, which are any arc of a circle or diameter in H3 that is perpendicular to the unit sphere. Incidentally, if points P1, P2 are on the geodesic, then our path w also falls on this. (Think of it as being the “straight line” of hyperbolic space.)

To measure the distance then, we can’t use the same linear measurement, and, instead, integrate along w (shortest path between P1, P2). Make sense, right? More specifically, it’s defined as

Now that we have our metric, and our space, we can go back and try to understand what exactly this hyperbolic knot (or even hyperbolic knot complement) seems to be. It turns out, that, to create a hyperbolic knot complement, one takes tetrahedron in hyperbolic space and glues them together.

Usually, in our happy Euclidean space, a tetrahedron looks something like this:

With all that we’ve talked about, the general take-away should be that negative curvature spaces have cross sections that curve in different directions. Therefore, when we put our tetrahedron (pyramid) into a hyperbolic space, it turns into something like this:

We end up taking multiple of these tetrahedron, and gluing the faces together inside H3 (the unit sphere), in order to make a knot complement.

So we’ve found out how to make these hyperbolic knots. How exactly do we distinguish between them? Interestingly enough, we can calculate the volume of these knot complements by adding the volume of the tetrahedron we are gluing together.

Turns out, this is actually an invariant of the hyperbolic knots, known as hyperbolic volume, and any two knots with different volumes must be different knots, for example, the knots below.

Sadly, the inverse cannot be said to be true -- there are (a few) knots with the same hyperbolic volume, that are not the same knot.

At this point, you may be wondering, since we’ve calculated the volume of these hyperbolic knot complements, couldn’t we calculate the volume of these knots? Well, the long answer is that you could, by taking the complement and dividing it into n tetrahedra, which you then get n different equations for, and…

While we could go on all day for hyperbolic spaces and hyperbolic knots, that’s it for hyperbolic knots for now! Thanks for listening, and keep up for the next update!

Abyss.uoregon.edu. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.

Loki3.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 15 Apr. 2016.

Mathworld.wolfram.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 15 Apr. 2016.

Adams, Colin Conrad. The Knot Book. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1994. Print.

Knotception (Alternatively, Satellite Knots)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 26 Mar 2016 03:10:00 +0000

Hello!

Thanks to everyone for keeping up with my knot blog for the past few weeks.

Last week, we talked about Torus Knots (click for a quick review! ) and how to create them. This week, we'll be talking about something similar, Satellite Knots. They involve knots inside of other knots (knot sure what that means? read on!), which brings us to the title of Knotception!

Let us consider the Torus shape we talked about last week, and make this a solid (i.e. - An actual donut with everything inside instead of the hollow shell we had before).

We can put a knot K1 inside this torus, so that it is wrapped around the "hole" in the center, see Figure 1.

Figure 1 - Solid Torus with Knot K1 inside

Now, we can, and this is the fun part, take the torus shell we have, and twist this into the shape of another knot K2, a torus, to be specific. It looks kind of like this:

Figure 2 - A torus twisted into a trefoil.

Except that we still have to remember the knot we had inside the torus. So, it ends up looking something like this:

Figure 3 - The first satellite knot that we have created.

With the 2-dimensional knot inside of the torus. The whole thing, or knot K3, is called a satellite knot, and the knot K2 is called the companion knot of the satellite.

You can think of it, maybe, as knot where the the satellite knot, or the final knot, orbits around (or is inside) the companion torus knot that is the center of the knot as a whole.

Alternatively, we could have an unknot inside the original torus knot. However, though, we have the knot inside twisted around a few times so that it looks as below, and we have the knot and the solid torus together as knot K1.

Figure 4 - The torus, with a knot twisted around inside

Here, though, if we twist this again into the torus shape as we did before, we have a knot that looks like this:

Figure 5- The Whitehead Knot

We call this a Whitehead Double of a Trefoil (the girl-scout cookie knot shape) because of the original knot's resemblance to the Whitehead link, comprised of two knots and shown below.

Figure 6 - The Whitehead Link. Kind of resembles the knot above.

Now, you may think, where can we go from here.

Well, it turns out, it does matter how we squish the unknot in the middle.

Because if we take the knot we had from before, and, this time, before we twist the torus (donut) into a trefoil (girl scout cookie-shaped knot), we cut it in the middle around the meridian circle (circled in red below), and twist each side around in the direction of the arrows (also shown below) in red.

Figure 7 - Take the knot from before, cut it open across a vertical circle, and twist it around a few times.

We then, take this and twist it, again, into a torus shape, and get the following result.
`

Figure 8 - This is the second Whitehead Double of the Trefoil.

This is a second Whitehead double of the trefoil. Resultingly, the knot inside is called a two-strand cable of the companion knot.

And, on that note, we'll end for this week. Thanks for keeping up, and hope you keep reading for more!

Torus Knots

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 19:51:00 +0000

Hello!

Hope all of you have been having a good week!

This week, We'll be talking about different kinds of knots, not necessarily as classified by an invariant, but known as a Torus Knot.

Before this, though, we should probably explain what a torus is.

The torus, pictured below, is the mathematical equivalent of the outside shell of a donut or bagel, whichever you prefer.

Figure 1 - The Torus

Therefore, a torus knot is a knot that has the knot itself (string), laying on the surface of the torus shape, without crossing over or under itself (i.e. - intersecting itself in any place).

The torus is, incidentally, made up of two types of circles, the meridian curve, which wraps once the short way around the torus, and the longitude curve, which wraps once the long way around the torus.

Torus knots are named as T(p,q), where the knot crosses over the meridian curve (the purple circle in Figure 2) p times, and the longitude curve (the red circle in Figure 2) q times.

Figure 2 - The longitude and meridian curves of the torus.

An example, would be the (3,5) Torus Knot below in Figure 3. It crosses around the meridian curve five times, while crossing around the longitudinal curve 3 times, and is denoted as the (3,5) torus knot,

Figure 3 - A T(3,5) Knot, or a (3,5) Torus Knot

It's easy to draw a torus knot. For example, for the torus knot (p,q) = (5,3), first, take the torus, and first draw p points, in this case 5 points, on both the inside and the outside meridian curves of the torus, as seen below in Figure 4, in corresponding positions.

Figure 4 - Draw p points on the inside and the outside.

Note how there are two sides of the torus, like the top and bottom has of a hypothetically halved and emptied bagel. To create the Torus Knot, we attach these inside and outside points in different ways.
On the bottom side of the torus attach each of the 5 inside points to each of the 5 outside corresponding points, as shown below in Figure 5.

Figure 5 - On the top half, attach each outside point to the corresponding inside point.

Now, on the top side of the torus, take each outside point, and attach it to the inside point that is a (3/5) clockwise turn, as shown below in Figure 6.

Figure 6 - On the bottom half, attach each outside point to the point that is rotated 3/5th clockwise.

And, now, you've successfully drawn a (5,3) torus knot!

Incidentally, though, we can also show that the knot T(p.q) can be deformed (moved around) to be identical to the knot T(q,p). Essentially, we now know that the T(p,q) and T(q,p) knots are equivalent.

In the diagram below, for example, we see a (3,2) torus knot being transformed into a (2,3) torus knot. It's pretty cool, actually, and makes our job a lot easier - we don't have to keep track of which order to put which in.

Figure 6 - The T(3,2) Torus Knot is a (2,3) Torus Knot

Besides being cool and fun to draw, torus knots important for being relatively simple to classify and look at, and, more specifically, give us a "family" of knots that we can consider at one time. In the papers I'm reading right now, especially, certain statements can be made for torus knots, given their properties, and these specific statements can lead to larger, more interesting generalizations!

Thanks for reading this week, and hope you keep up for next week's post!

Tricolorability and Reidemeister Moves

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 18:07:00 +0000

Hello, again!

This is the second part of our weekly update, and a continuation of our earlier discussion of tricolorability.

So, essentially, we posed the question of -- can a knot still be tricolorable if you twist it around, poke at it, etc? Why does this matter, you ask.

Well, do you remember how we looked at the unknot last time and pointed out that it can't be tricolorable, because there's no way to color the unknot with at least two colors?

Well, it turns out, if you take the unknot and use a few Reidemeister moves on it, you get this

Figure 1 - The unknot with multiple Reidemeister moves.

What's to say, then, that one of these later arrangements can't be tricolorable.

Thus, it's useful for us to show that the Reidemeister moves do not affect tricolorability.

Below, then, we can see that each of the Reidemeister moves are not affected by tricolorability
(ie - they remain colorable in at least two colors, and at each of the crossings, have all same or all different colored strands):

Note that, below, as each of the Reidemeister moves are acted upon the section of the knot, the tricolorability (all three colors or only one color) is preserved.

Figure 2a - Reidemeister Move 1

Figure 2b - Reidemeister Move II

Figure 2c - Reidemeister Move III.

Tricolorability, in comparison to other invariants, it is slightly easier to deal with, because if a knot is tricolorable in one projection, then it is tricolorable in any other equivalent projection (i.e. - If you stretch/move/twist it around a lot, it's still tricolorable.)

Thanks for listening, and keep reading for the next post on petal numbers and ubercrossings!

References:

"Figure Eight Knot—Dave Richeson - Math 201: Knot Theory". Math201s09.wikidot.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Mar. 2016.

"Knots | Brilliant Math & Science Wiki". Brilliant.org. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Mar. 2016.

"The Pretzel Knot - Math 201: Knot Theory". Math201s09.wikidot.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Mar. 2016.

"Tricolorable -- From Wolfram Mathworld". Mathworld.wolfram.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Mar. 2016.

"Unknot". Personal.kenyon.edu. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Mar. 2016.

Adams, Colin Conrad. The Knot Book. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1994. Print.

Nizami, Abdul Rauf, Mobeen Munir, and Malka Shah Bano. "The Quantum Sl&Lt;Sub&Gt;2&Lt;/Sub&Gt;-Invariant Of A Family Of Knots". AM 05.01 (2014): 70-78. Web. 5 Mar. 2016.

Tricolorability

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 06:54:00 +0000

Hello!

Thanks for keeping up with the blog, and reading up til now.

Today, we'll be talking about two different invariants - Tricolorability, and Ubercrossings and Petal Number.

We'll begin by explaining tricolorability.

So far, with the Reidemeister moves and all of the other invariants we've been talking about, we claim that these are all distinct knots that we can separate from eachother - with the help of these very invariants that we use.

However, how do we know, in the first place, that these knots are all separate. How do we know that some knot that we deem not to be the unknot cannot have a series of Reidemeister moves through which it can become the unknot?

Tricolorability is a clear invariant because, it's obvious.

Remember what a crossing in a knot is? (Hint - It's the place where one piece crosses over another) We call a crossing an undercrossing for the piece underneath, and an overcrossing for the piece above. In a knot projection, the undercrossing will be the piece that is broken up, and the overcrossing will be the one that is continuous.

Figure 1 - In a crossing, this is the overcrossing and the undercrossing.

Let us call a strand of a knot the length ranging from one undercrossing to the next.

Now, we can define tricolorability. Do you remember all of those map coloring things where you had to color a map (or just a picture) with 3 or 4 colors? This is similar, in a way.

A knot, or a projection of a knot, is said to be tricolorable if the strands of the knot can be colored so that at every crossing (where 2 or more strands of the knot meet), three different colors or three of the same colors come together. There is, also and interestingly, a rule that a tricolorable knot must be colored with at least two colors.

For example, the trefoil in Figure 2a is obviously tricolorable, but the pretzel knot in Figure 2b would also be tricolorable.

Figure 2a - The trefoil is tricolorable. All of its strands are of three different colors at each of the crossings.

Figure 2b- This is the pretzel knot - note that at every crossing, the colors are either all different or all the same.

Alternatively, though, the figure-8 knot and the unknot are both not tricolorable, the unknot (in Figure 3a) for obvious reasons, and the figure-8 knot (in Figure 3b), because it cannot be colored in three colors.

Figure 3a - The unknot is tricolorable because it can only be colored with one color.

Figure 3b - The Figure-8 knot is uncolorable because it cannot be colored with three colors at one crossing.

This invariants gives us a clear distinction between the unknot and the rest of our knots, which proves knot theory to be non-trivial and is helpful for all the work done in it so far.

How do we show that the Reidemeister moves do not affect the tricolorability of the knot, then?

Well, that'll be in the next post - Reidemeister moves and Tricolorability! Keep on reading for more!

Linking back to Links

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 07:22:00 +0000

Continuing on, we talk about the invariant made by links, and the analogous unlink (to the unknot).

Because mathematicians are always very creative people, things get names like as "the unknot" and "the unlink". If you remember the unknot (hint, it's the individual knots on the left and right in Figure 1), the unlink simply consists of two unknots (see Figure 1).

Alternatively, the Hopf link also consists of two unknots, but joined together (see Figure 2).

Figure 1 - The (splittable) unlink is made up of two unknots.

Figure 2 - The (unsplittable) Hopf link is also made up of two unknots.

At this point, you may think, well, it would be nice if we had a way to show exactly how linked two things were. Well, surprise, there is -- and it's called the linking number.

The way to find the linking number is, if you take a 2 component link and designate one as being on the left, and the other being on the right. Then, look at all the places the two cross. If the left one crosses over the right, add one to your total, and if the right one crosses over the left, subtract one from your total (Figure 3).

(+1)

Figure 3 - Calculating Linking Number

Then take this and divide by two. You have your linking number.

If you switch which component is on the left and right, you'll get either the positive or negative of the value. This is an invariant, because, no matter how you twist or turn the knot, the linking number will stay the same.

Unsurprisingly, the linking number of the unlink and the unknot is zero. Also, it is unaffected when the Reidemeister moves (from last week's post) are implemented onto the link.

Anyways, that's it for now. Thanks for keeping up, and see you next week!

References:

Adams, Colin Conrad. The Knot Book. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1994. Print.

Bio.math.berkeley.edu,. N.p., 2016. Web. 27 Feb. 2016.

Exploring Optimal Nutrition,. "Exploring Optimal Nutrition". N.p., 2016. Web. 27 Feb. 2016.

Ndstudies.gov,. "3 - Venn Diagram | North Dakota Studies". N.p., 2016. Web. 27 Feb. 2016.

Upload.wikimedia.org,. N.p., 2016. Web. 27 Feb. 2016.

An Intermission, Papers, and Magnetic Fields

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 06:46:00 +0000

This is a brief intermission between the first and second "explanatory" posts of today.

My posts so far have all been about knot theory basics (getting into it, etc), so I realized it would probably be good to talk a bit about what I've been doing.

So far, in the past couple weeks, I've been finishing up on going through various knot invariants, and their properties, some of which I've posted about, and some of which I have yet to post about, in order to familiarize myself with their properties.

I will also be starting to look at a few papers on various invariants mentioned in the book I've been reading.

In additional to my project, by suggestion of my SRP mentor professor, I go to the weekly geometry seminars. They always have interesting topics, that are difficult but interesting to try to understand. Today's was on Microscopic Electromagnetism and Differential Forms. It was a derivation, using vector fields and wedge product to derive Maxwell's Equations (electric/magnetic fields, potentials, sources - all that fun stuff).

My posts will probably be mostly along the lines of explaining knot theory, with once in a while check-ins with the status of my project.

Hope you guys keep reading, and keep up with my posts!

Linking Venn Diagrams to Paper Clip Chains

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 06:46:00 +0000

Hello! Thanks for reading and keeping up with the posts here.

So far, in the course of these posts, we've only been talking about or single knotted loops of string.

Today, we'll be talking about links, or multiple knots mixed together.

If you have ever made paper clips chains or have drawn a Venn Diagram, think of it as something like that, except with the loops of knots (Figure 1, 2).

Figure 1 - A triple diagram. (Or, as a link, famously called the Borromean Rings.)

Figure 2 - A paper clip chain - Links are like this in that they are looped in eachother.

The diagram in Figure is be an example of the Borromean Rings link. Another example of a link, would be the Whitehead Link below

Figure 3 - The Whitehead Link is made up of two separate loops.

We say a link has n components if it is made up of n different parts. For example, the Borromean Rings link in Figure 1 would be composed of three components.

Links can be classified as splittable and non-splittable. Splittable links are those you can twist so that the pieces become separate.

Think of this as taking two rubber bands and trying to roll them together (we've all done it...). No matter how you try to push them together, you can still pull them apart (move them around) so that they're back to two separate rubber bands.

Splittable links are kind of like this, except, instead of just rubber bands, you can take knots and try to smush them together. The figure below shows the two examples.

Figure 4 - Two different splittable links.

We mostly focus on unsplittable links (such as the Whitehead Link in Figure 4), as splittable links can be pulled apart and considered as two separate knots.

That's it for now (as this has been a pretty long post), and we'll continue after a short intermission!

Reidemeister Moves

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 06:58:00 +0000

Hello!

For the second part of our two-post series, we'll be talking about very special kinds of "moves" in knot theory, with which you can pull and twist a knot around while keeping it as the same knot. These rearrangements, as a whole, which are made without passing the knot through itself, are called isotopies.

There are three types of moves allowed, called the Reidemeister Moves (see Figure 1). These moves enable us to take away or add a crossing.

Figure 1 - The Reidemeister Moves

The first Reidemeister move allows us to put or remove a twist in the knot (Figure 2),

Figure 2 - This is the first Reidemeister move.

The second Reidemeister move allows us to either add two crossings or remove two crossings from the knot (Figure 3).

Figure 3 - This is the second Reidemeister move.

The third Reidemeister move allows us to slide a strand of a crossing from one side to another of a crossing (see Figure 4).

Figure 4 - This is the third Reidemeister move.

Invariants, which we talked about earlier, are preserved under Reidemeister moves, which is what makes these especially important.

Thanks for reading, and keep up for the next post!

Works Cited:

Adams, Colin Conrad. The Knot Book. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1994. Print.

Armstrong, John. "Reidemeister Moves". The Unapologetic Mathematician. N.p., 2007. Web. 20 Feb. 2016.

Win.tue.nl,. N.p., 2016. Web. 20 Feb. 2016.

Knot Composition and Knot Inverses

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 06:58:00 +0000

Hello!

Thanks for reading and keeping up with the weekly updates. The structure of these posts, for now, will be mostly review of different invariants, basics of knot theory, etc, before we get into more interesting stuff.

For the first part of our 2-post daily series, we'll be talking about composition of knots, or how you take two knots, and stick them together into another knot.

If you have two knots, M, and N, to compose them, you cut off a small arc of each knot, and join the two knots at the newly made four endpoints. This composition is denoted by M#N. (See Figure 1)

Figure 1 - This is a composition of knots K1, K2, both the trefoil.

So now you may be wondering: Okay, great. You can take two knots (which you don't know a lot about) and squish them together into another knot (that you know even less about). What's good about that?

Essentially, with these definitions, we can call a knot either "prime" or "composite." The knot is composite if it can be made as a composition of two nontrivial knots (fancy word for not the unknot), and it's prime if it cannot (see Figure 3).

For example, the square knot below would be composite, as it is made up of the composition of a trefoil and its inverse. (More about that later) (see Figure 1,2)

Figure 2 - The square knot is composite.

The trefoil that it's made up of (pictured above in Figure 1) would be a prime knot.

The inverse of a knot, as we talked about, earlier works like this. Consider the trefoil from earlier. An oriented trefoil (or an oriented knot) is a knot on which you choose a direction to move in (see Figure 3)

Figure 3 - An oriented trefoil knot.

The inverse of a knot is its mirror image.

A knot is called chiral if its inverse is not equivalent to itself. Alternatively, a knot is called amphichiral if it is equivalent to its to its inverse.

From here, then, we can go into invertible (reversible) knots, which means that the knot can be twisted around so that it appears the same, but with its orientation (see earlier) going in the opposite direction.

Thanks for reading this, now onto the next post about the Reidemeister Moves!

Works Cited

Adams, Colin Conrad. The Knot Book. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1994. Print.

Mathworld.wolfram.com,. "Knot Sum -- From Wolfram Mathworld". N.p., 2016. Web. 20 Feb. 2016.

Introduction to Invariants

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 13 Feb 2016 06:05:00 +0000

Hello!

First of all, thanks for keeping up with this blog, and the uneven distribution of posts.

This post will mostly be explaining some of the basics of knot theory.

So starting off, we talked about how there are many, many different kinds of knots, in last weeks post, and how, they're all basically "a closed, non-self-intersecting curve that is embedded in three dimensions" (read: circles).

From this, we can consider the projections of a knot. Projections are ways which we can display the knot, and each knot can have many, many different projections. Think of it as a knot in a bubble that we can turn to look at. For example, you can find different projections of the KotW (Knot of the Week) here: 8_17 Projections. (If you click around, you'll see that the knot looks different, but stays the same,)

Another interesting knot property to consider is the crossing number of the knot. A crossing is a place where a knot crosses itself, and the crossing number, naturally, would be the (minimum) number of times a knot would have to cross with itself.

Figure 1 - The crossings of this 7_5 knot has been circled.

The knot has 7 crossings which cannot be simplified. So even if you take a part of the knot, and you keep on twisting and twisting and twisting it, the crossing number would not change.

The crossing number, here, is what we would call an invariant of a knot.

A knot invariant is a property of a knots that will stay the same even when it is pulled around. Because of this, knot invariants are good ways, and the typically used ways, to classify knots. There are many different invariants used, including knot polynomials, bridge number, curvature, etc.

Hope you enjoyed this tidbit, and expect another post very soon!

Works Cited:

Knotilus.math.uwo.ca,. "Knotilus". N.p., 2016. Web. 13 Feb. 2016.

Mathworld.wolfram.com,. "Knot -- From Wolfram Mathworld". N.p., 2016. Web. 13 Feb. 2016.

Knot of the Week

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 13 Feb 2016 05:12:00 +0000

The Knot of the Week: The 8_17 knot.

This knot is the simplest of the non-invertible knots, which means that you cannot deform the knot (move parts of it around) so that you can make it the mirror version of itself.

If you want to learn more about it, feel free to go here: 8_17.

References:

Commons.wikimedia.org,. "File:8 17 Knot.Svg - Wikimedia Commons". N.p., 2016. Web. 13 Feb. 2016.

Introducing the Knot

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 19:01:00 +0000

There's knot a better way to start off a knot theory blog than with a knot joke or a knot pun.

Marty Scharlemann tells the story of a calculus student who came in for help, and after Marty had worked some problems, the student said "So what kind of math do you like?"
Marty said "Knot theory."
The student said "Yeah, me neither."

(Joke credited to, and found in The Knot Book)

Starting off more properly, though--Hello! I'm Alice Yang, a high school senior at BASIS Scottsdale. I enjoy, as one can probably tell by now, math. In my free time, when I’m not doing math, I enjoy drinking tea, and playing violin.

My blog, this post the first of many, will be detailing my research the next few months in the area of knot theory. My fascination with knots probably started the previous summer, at SUMaC (Stanford University Math Camp). It started off after I unsuccessfully tried to figure out a puzzle, pictured below.

Figure 1 -- The puzzle that started it all.

So, in hopes of trying to figure out the puzzle I decided to learn about knot theory. A summer later, I’ve learned more about the subject, through my research project, and it is a truly fascinating area. So, when I had to choose a Senior Research Project to complete in my third trimester of school, I decided to choose knot theory.

Figure 2 - A trefoil knot -- this is one of the simplest types of knots, with three crossings.

In my senior research project, I'm going to be considering knots, and, specifically, ways to classify these knots, using knot invariants (explained later in the post).

So, by now, you (hopefully) will be wondering, what exactly a knot is. The best way to explain it is: if you take a string, jumble it up in the middle, and glue the ends together, you have a knot. This is extremely vague, and, therefore, there are many, many different kinds of knots.

Figure 3 – There are many different kinds of knots.

There are also, because of this, many different ways of classifying knots, including knot polynomials, crossing number. The invariant of a knot is a property that, when defined for two knots, holds true and stays the same for both. My project aims to create one using the conformal length of the knot (more about that in later posts).

I have the great opportunity of working under the guidance of Dr. Julien Paupert on this project, among others possibly, and hope, through his guidance and in the process of working, to learn more about knots, invariants, and math in general. Dr. Paupert’s personal page can be found here: Link to Dr. Paupert's Page, and the general ASU Department of Mathematics page can be found here: Link to ASU Math Department .

If you’re really curious, there’s a very conveniently located math dictionary to your right. My project, specifically is titled It’s a Knot (or Not?): Determining Knot Invariants Using the Knot Conformal Length, and the project proposal can be found right here: Link to SRP Proposal.

I’m excited to start working, and I hope to keep you informed weekly, or sooner, on any updates.

Works Cited:

Adams, Colin Conrad. The Knot Book: An Elementary Introduction to the Mathematical Theory of Knots. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1994. Print.

Haneyama Vortex. Digital image. Fun and Games Montville. Fun & Games, Montville, n.d. Web. <http://www.funandgamesmontville.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Hanayama-Vortex.jpg>.

Knot-Crossings. Digital image. Math and the Art of MC Escher. Math and the Art of MC Escher, n.d. Web. <http://euler.slu.edu/escher/upload/3/37/Knots-9cross.gif>.

Trefoil. Digital image. The University of Scranton. The University of Scranton, n.d. Web. <http://www.scranton.edu/academics/ignite/issues/2013/spring/Images/interior/Trefoil_knot_arb.jpg>.