Knots and Surfaces -- Ina Petkova
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Every knot in S^3 bounds a surface. This surface gives rise to the
Seifert matrix, the Alexander polynomial, and the signature of the
knot. We will define all these and check which of them are invariants
of the knot. A knot in S^3 is called a <i>slice</i> if it bounds a special kind
of disk in the four-ball that S^3 bounds. We will look at some
properties of the signature of a knot and see how they relate to
sliceness.
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This talk should be accesible to everyone -- elementary topology required.