In mathematical knot theory, a link is a collection of knots which do not intersect, but which may be linked (or knotted) together. A knot can be described as a link with one component. Links and knots are studied in a branch of mathematics called knot theory. Implicit in this definition is that there is a trivial reference link, usually called the unlink, but the word is also sometimes used in context where there is no notion of a trivial link.
For example, a co-dimension 2 link in 3-dimensional space is a subspace of 3-dimensional Euclidean space (or often the 3-sphere) whose connected components are homeomorphic to circles.
The simplest nontrivial example of a link with more than one component is called the Hopf link, which consists of two circles (or unknots) linked together once. The circles in
the Borromean rings are collectively linked despite the fact that no two of them are directly linked. The Borromean rings thus form a Brunnian link and in fact constitute the simplest such link.
The notion of a link can be generalized in a number of ways.
Frequently the word link is used to describe any submanifold of the sphere diffeomorphic to a disjoint union of a finite number of spheres, .
In full generality, the word link is essentially the same as the word knot – the context is that one has a submanifold M of a manifold N (considered to be trivially embedded) and a non-trivial embedding of M in N, non-trivial in the sense that the 2nd embedding is not isotopic to the 1st. If M is disconnected, the embedding is called a link (or said to be linked). If M is connected, it is called a knot.
Tangle (mathematics)
While (1-dimensional) links are defined as embeddings of circles, it is often interesting and especially technically useful to consider embedded intervals (strands), as in braid theory.
Most generally, one can consider a tangle – a tangle is an embedding
of a (smooth) compact 1-manifold with boundary into the plane times the interval such that the boundary is embedded in
().
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Algebraic geometry is the common language for many branches of modern research in mathematics. This course gives an introduction to this field by studying algebraic curves and their intersection theor
In mathematics, the Borromean rings are three simple closed curves in three-dimensional space that are topologically linked and cannot be separated from each other, but that break apart into two unknotted and unlinked loops when any one of the three is cut or removed. Most commonly, these rings are drawn as three circles in the plane, in the pattern of a Venn diagram, alternatingly crossing over and under each other at the points where they cross.
In mathematical knot theory, a link is a collection of knots which do not intersect, but which may be linked (or knotted) together. A knot can be described as a link with one component. Links and knots are studied in a branch of mathematics called knot theory. Implicit in this definition is that there is a trivial reference link, usually called the unlink, but the word is also sometimes used in context where there is no notion of a trivial link.
In mathematics, a hyperbolic link is a link in the 3-sphere with complement that has a complete Riemannian metric of constant negative curvature, i.e. has a hyperbolic geometry. A hyperbolic knot is a hyperbolic link with one component. As a consequence of the work of William Thurston, it is known that every knot is precisely one of the following: hyperbolic, a torus knot, or a satellite knot. As a consequence, hyperbolic knots can be considered plentiful. A similar heuristic applies to hyperbolic links.