Related papers: On the bridge number of knot diagrams with minimal…

The crossing number of a graph is the minimum number of crossings in a drawing of the graph in the plane. Our main result is that every graph $G$ that does not contain a fixed graph as a minor has crossing number $O(\Delta n)$, where $G$…

Consider a robot that remembers only the starting position and walks along a knot once on a knot diagram, switching every undercrossing it meets until it returns to the starting position. We observe that the robot produces an ascending…

In this note we provide an improved upper bound on the biplanar crossing number of the 8-dimensional hypercube. The $k$-planar crossing number of a graph $cr_k(G)$ is the number of crossings required when every edge of $G$ must be drawn in…

The concordance genus of a knot K is the minimum three-genus among all knots concordant to K. For prime knots of 10 or fewer crossings there have been three knots for which the concordance genus was unknown. Those three cases are now…

Motivated by a problem asked by Richter and by the long standing Harary-Hill conjecture, we study the relation between the crossing number of a graph $G$ and the crossing number of its cone $CG$, the graph obtained from $G$ by adding a new…

Traditionally, knot theorists have considered projections of knots where there are two strands meeting at every crossing. A triple crossing is a crossing where three strands meet at a single point, such that each strand bisects the…

A virtual link may be defined as an equivalence class of diagrams, or alternatively as a stable equivalence class of links in thickened surfaces. We prove that a minimal crossing virtual link diagram has minimal genus across representatives…

A Chebyshev knot ${\cal C}(a,b,c,\phi)$ is a knot which has a parametrization of the form $ x(t)=T_a(t); y(t)=T_b(t) ; z(t)= T_c(t + \phi), $ where $a,b,c$ are integers, $T_n(t)$ is the Chebyshev polynomial of degree $n$ and $\phi \in \R.$…

We describe a method of encoding various types of link diagrams, including those with classical, flat, rigid, welded, and virtual crossings. We show that this method may be used to encode link diagrams, up to equivalence, in a notation…

The ribbon number $r(K)$ of a ribbon knot $K \subset S^3$ is the minimal number of ribbon intersections contained in any ribbon disk bounded by $K$. We find new lower bounds for $r(K)$ using $\det(K)$ and $\Delta_K(t)$, and we prove that…

We give infinitely many examples of 2-bridge knots for which the topological and smooth slice genera differ. The smallest of these is the 12-crossing knot $12a255$. These also provide the first known examples of alternating knots for which…

The warping degree of an oriented knot diagram is the minimal number of crossings which we meet as an under-crossing first when we travel along the diagram from a fixed point. The warping degree of a knot projection is the minimal value of…

We present a sequence of diagrams of the unknot for which the minimum number of Reidemeister moves required to pass to the trivial diagram is quadratic with respect to the number of crossings. These bounds apply both in $S^2$ and in $\R^2$.

A knot in the 3-sphere in genus-1 1-bridge position (called a (1,1)-position) can be described by an element of the braid group of two points in the torus. Our main results tell how to translate between a braid group element and the…

The crossing number $cr(G)$ of a graph $G=(V,E)$ is the smallest number of edge crossings over all drawings of $G$ in the plane. For any $k\ge 1$, the $k$-planar crossing number of $G$, $cr_k(G)$, is defined as the minimum of…

A matching $M$ in a graph $G$ is uniquely restricted if no other matching in $G$ covers the same set of vertices. We conjecture that every connected subcubic graph with $m$ edges and $b$ bridges that is distinct from $K_{3,3}$ has a…

It is well known that the minimum crossing number of an alternating link equals the number of crossings in any reduced alternating link diagram of the link. This remarkable result is an application of the Jones polynomial. In the case of…

A knot K in a closed connected orientable 3-manifold M is called a 1-genus 1-bridge knot if (M,K) has a splitting into two pairs of a solid torus V_i (i=1,2) and a boundary parallel arc in it. The splitting induces a genus two Heegaard…

We prove that any diagram of the unknot with c crossings may be reduced to the trivial diagram using at most (236 c)^{11} Reidemeister moves. Moreover, every diagram in this sequence has at most (7 c)^2 crossings. We also prove a similar…

In this paper we present a systematic method to generate prime knot and prime link minimal triple-point projections, and then classify all classical prime knots and prime links with triple-crossing number at most four. We also extend the…