Return to Colloquia & Seminar listing
A second order linking invariant
Geometry/Topology| Speaker: | Charles Livingston, Indiana University and UC Berkeley |
| Location: | 693 Kerr |
| Start time: | Wed, Nov 28 2001, 4:10PM |
Description
The simplest invariant of knot theory is the linking number; given two
knotted circles, it gives an easily computed numerical measure of how
linked together the knots are. Telling two links apart when they have the
same linking number is more subtle. In this talk I will describe another
easily computed invariant that can be applied to distinguish links with
the same linking number. This invariant has applications to problems
concerning the symmetries of links and also is related to knot polynomials
and the theory of finite type knot invariants.