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Invariants of tangles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Tim D. Cochran
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, U.S.A.
Daniel Ruberman
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254, U.S.A.

Extract

A tangle is a pair of strings (t0, t1) properly embedded in a 3-ball. Tangles have been used in several approaches to the classification of knots (see [1, 4, 15]). In these investigations, one keeps track of the endpoints of the arcs, so that the sum of two tangles along their boundaries is well defined. In particular, the sum of a given tangle with a trivial tangle, and any invariants of the resulting link, are invariants of the tangle under the restricted relation of isotopy keeping the endpoints fixed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Philosophical Society 1989

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References

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