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Positive knots have positive Conway polynomials

Part of the Lecture Notes in Mathematics book series (LNM,volume 1144)

Abstract

This note concerns knots which are positive in the sense that they are closures of positive words in the classical braid generators. Such knots are known to be fibred, non-slice and non-amphicheiral. Recursive knot-theoretic methods of J.H. Conway yield criteria sufficiently restrictive to settle the question of positivity for all save four of the 249 knots on ten or fewer crossings and provide alternate proofs for classical and recent results on positive knots.

Keywords

  • Horizontal Move
  • Mapping Class Group
  • Vertical Edge
  • Positive Word
  • Alexander Polynomial

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© 1985 Springer-Verlag

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Van Buskirk, J.M. (1985). Positive knots have positive Conway polynomials. In: Rolfsen, D. (eds) Knot Theory and Manifolds. Lecture Notes in Mathematics, vol 1144. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0075018

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0075018

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-15680-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-39616-1

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