Intended destiny: Tait conjectures
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The Tait conjectures are conjectures made by Peter Guthrie Tait in his study of knots. The Tait conjectures involve concepts in knot theory such as alternating knots, chirality, and writhe. All of the Tait conjectures have been solved, the most recent being the Tait flyping conjecture proven in 1991 by Morwen Thistlethwaite and William Menasco.
Background
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Tait came up with his conjectures after his attempt to tabulate all knots in the late 19th century. As a founder of the field of knot theory, his work lacks a mathematically rigorous framework, and it is unclear whether the conjectures apply to all knots, or just to alternating knots. Most of them are only true for alternating knots. [1]In the Tait conjectures, a knot diagram is reduced if all the isthmus have been removed. [2]
The Tait conjectures
editTait conjectured that in certain circumstances, crossing number was a knot invariant, specifically:
Any reduced diagram of an alternating link has the fewest possible crossings.
In other words, the crossing number of an reduced, alternating link is an invariant of the knot.[2] This conjecture was proven by Morwen Thistlethwaite, Louis Kauffman and K. Murasugi in 1987, using the Jones polynomial. [2] Another one of his conjectures:
A reduced alternating link with zero writhe implies that the link is chiral.[2]
This conjecture was also proven by Morwen Thistlethwaite. [2]
The Tait flyping conjecture
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The Tait flyping conjecture can be stated:
Given any two reduced alternating diagrams D1 and D2 of an oriented, prime alternating link: D1 may be transformed to D2 by means of a sequence of certain simple moves called flypes. Also known as the Tait flyping conjecture.[3]
The Tait flyping conjecture was proven by Morwen Thistlethwaite and William Menasco in 1991. [3] The Tait flyping conjecture implies some more of Tait's conjectures:
Any two reduced diagrams of the same alternating knot have the same writhe.
This follows because flyping preserves writhe. This was proven earlier by Morwen Thistlethwaite, Louis Kauffman and K. Murasugi in 1987. [2] For non-alternating knots this conjecture is not true, assuming so lead to the duplication of the Perko pair, because it has two reduced projections with different writhe. [1] The flyping conjecture also implies this conjecture:
Alternating Amphichiral knots have even crossing number. [1]
This follows because a knot's mirror image has opposite writhe. [1] This one is also only true for alternating knots, a non-alternating amphichiral knot with crossing number 15 was found, by Morwen Thistlethwaite. [4]
References
edit- ^ a b c d A. Stoimenow, "Tait's conjectures and odd amphicheiral knots", 2007, arXiv: 0704.1941v1
- ^ a b c d e f Louis Kauffman, Formal knot theory, 2006, ISBN 0-486-45052-X 221-227
- ^ a b Weisstein, Eric W. "Tait's Knot Conjectures." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TaitsKnotConjectures.html
- ^ Weisstein, Eric W. "Amphichiral Knot." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/AmphichiralKnot.html