Dr. Hans U. Boden
McMaster University

April 29, 2015
11:00 – 11:50 am
SCP-229

“Virtual Knots and Knotted Surfaces”

Abstract: This talk will be a gentle introduction to virtual knot theory, which was discovered by Louis Kauffman in 1999. We will define virtual knots and show how to view these as knots in thickened surfaces, and also how every virtual knot determines a knotted surface in 4-space via “balloon inflation.” We will also discuss how to define useful quantities to distinguish between virtual knots and present some recent results that grew out of undergraduate summer research projects conducted in 2013 and 2014.