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Thin position of knots and 3-manifolds

Geometry/Topology

Speaker: Jennifer Schultens, UC Davis
Location: 693 Kerr
Start time: Wed, Mar 2 2005, 4:10PM

We will compare and contrast the notions of thin position for knots and 3-manifolds. Given a knot in the 3-sphere, the 2-fold branched cover yields a 3-manifold. It is tempting to conjecture that thin position of the knot would imply thin position of the 3-manifold. Though this implication can be established for certain knots, it is unlikely to hold in general.