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An introduction to knot invariants of finite type
Student-Run Geometry/Topology Seminar| Speaker: | Rohit Thomas, UC Davis |
| Location: | 2112 MSB |
| Start time: | Thu, Apr 12 2007, 11:00AM |
A knot invariant is said to be of finite type if it has, in a certain sense, only finitely many nonzero ``derivatives''. In this talk I will attempt to clarify what this means and motivate the theory of finite type invariants. I will focus on weight systems (which correspond to ``derivatives'' of finite type invariants) and the configuration space integral approach to finite type invariants. If time permits, I will briefly discuss finite type invariants of 3-manifolds. This talk should be accessible to those without background in knot theory.