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Bi-College Math Colloquium

Monday, December 6, 2021 - 4:00pm

Miriam Kuzbary

Georgia Tech

Location

Haverford College

Hilles 109

Knot theory is a rich and active area of research involving questions of interest both to mathematicians and to researchers outside of mathematics, and many of these questions boil down to a single essential query: how can one tell when two knots are different? In this talk, we will discuss why this is a difficult question to answer. In particular, we will learn about polynomials used to detect properties of knots and the surprising geometric properties of the Alexander polynomial.