Leonard -- MATH 391 Knot Theory -- Spring 2018 -- SDSMT

LAST UPDATED: MAY 2018 (and the information is rather incomplete)

Course Information

• Syllabus

Homework Assignments

• Week One

• Week Two

• Week Three: No official homework, don't forget the bonus questions we discussed in class.

  • Be sure to read through Section 2.3 about Conway's notation, rational & algebraic tangles & links.

• Week Four

• Week Five: Finish up the Week Four assignment.

• Week Six: No official homework.

  • Prepare for our discussion of the Jones Polynomial -- read section 6.1.

• Week Seven: Snow Day, no class! We'll pick up with the Jones Polynomial next week.

• Week Eight: We introduced the Jones Polynomial.

  • Each of you were assigned one of the prime six-crossing knots.

  • Your goal is to verify its Jones Polynomial by hand. Deadline: March 27.

• Week Nine: We continued practicing with the Jones Polynomial.

Other Resources

• http://www.indiana.edu/~knotinfo/ -- This website is teeming with information!!

• John H. Conway's super important paper regarding his enumeration of knots and links. This paper discusses what we have come to call algebraic links, but it also goes into so-called non-algebraic links (there are some non-algebraic knots and links in the knot table in the back of the book -- they are those knots and links that, for example, contain asterisks, colons, or dots in their Conway notation).