Definition:Knot Theory
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Definition
Knot theory is the branch of geometry which studies the embedding of knots in $3$-dimensional space.
Also see
- Results about knot theory can be found here.
Historical Note
Knot theory was first studied by Carl Friedrich Gauss and Johann Benedict Listing.
Subsequently it was studied in more detail by the physicists Lord Kelvin, James Clerk Maxwell and Peter Guthrie Tait in the late $19$th century.
Tait constructed tables of knots whose planar representations had few crossings, and in particular studied knots which had alternating diagrams.
Knot theory has in more recent times been used to study complicated molecules such as DNA.
Sources
- 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): knot theory
- 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): knot theory