Lecture Notes on Knot Invariants

"The overall impression the book makes is a good one. The choice of material dealt with is reasonable." Zentralblatt Math "This textbook would be well suited for a second-year graduate course. It includes a wealth of detail for the student or researcher wishing to practically compute with these concepts. In particular, it is an ideal place for exploring the deep background and intricacies of both the Jones polynomial and Casson's link invariants." Mathematical Reviews Clippings The volume is focused on the basic calculation skills of various knot invariants defined from topology and geometry. It presents the detailed Hecke algebra and braid representation to illustrate the original Jones polynomial (rather than the algebraic formal definition many other books and research articles use) and provides self-contained proofs of the Tait conjecture (one of the big achievements from the Jones invariant). It also presents explicit computations to the Casson–Lin invariant via braid representations. With the approach of an explicit computational point of view on knot invariants, this user-friendly volume will benefit readers to easily understand low-dimensional topology from examples and computations, rather than only knowing terminologies and theorems.

The volume is focused on the basic calculation skills of various knot invariants defined from topology and geometry. It presents the detailed Hecke algebra and braid representation to illustrate the original Jones polynomial (rather than the algebraic formal definition many other books and research articles use) and provides self-contained proofs of the Tait conjecture (one of the big achievements from the Jones invariant). It also presents explicit computations to the CassonLin invariant via braid representations. With the approach of an explicit computational point of view on knot invariants, this user-friendly volume will benefit readers to easily understand low-dimensional topology from examples and computations, rather than only knowing terminologies and theorems.