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The growth of the number of prime knots

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

C. Ernst  and
D. W. Sumners
C. Ernst
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, U.S.A.
D. W. Sumners
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, U.S.A.
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Extract

A fundamental and interesting question in knot theory is:

Question 1. How many prime knots of n crossings are there ?

Over time, knot theorists have answered this question for n ≤ 13 by the method of exhaustion: one writes down a list of all possible knots of n crossings, and then works hard to eliminate duplications from the list [12]. A perhaps easier question is the following:

Type
Research Article
Information
Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society , Volume 102 , Issue 2 , September 1987 , pp. 303 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Philosophical Society 1987

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References

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