Samose Seminar Series: To Be or Knot to Be Date & Time: Friday, June 9th at 4pm (Tea/Coffee at 3.45pm) Venue: Simons Centre, Ground Floor Speaker: Dr. Prathamesh Turaga, IMSc Chennai Abstract: Knot theory is a branch of mathematical research in which one studies the mathematical formulation of the intuitive notion of a knotted piece of rope. The modern day origins of this topic lie in the earliest models of atom by Lord Kelvin. Over the years, it has transcended its origin to become an important area of topology, with applications which range from string theory and robotics to statistical mechanics and DNA structures. A fundamental problem of this area of research is to find algorithms to recognize if a given 2-dimensional picture of a entangled loop is actually 'knotted'. Very few such algorithms have been discovered. In this talk, I intend to give a brief history of this area and the problem. I further intend to discuss a new implementable algorithm that was obtained in the course of an ongoing project with Meesum Syed, IMSc. The talk will have a strong popular math flavour, and should be accessible to everyone with a high school background in Math.
All are welcome!