Examples/classes:
Types
Related concepts:
topology (point-set topology, point-free topology)
see also differential topology, algebraic topology, functional analysis and topological homotopy theory
Basic concepts
fiber space, space attachment
Extra stuff, structure, properties
Kolmogorov space, Hausdorff space, regular space, normal space
sequentially compact, countably compact, locally compact, sigma-compact, paracompact, countably paracompact, strongly compact
Examples
Basic statements
closed subspaces of compact Hausdorff spaces are equivalently compact subspaces
open subspaces of compact Hausdorff spaces are locally compact
compact spaces equivalently have converging subnet of every net
continuous metric space valued function on compact metric space is uniformly continuous
paracompact Hausdorff spaces equivalently admit subordinate partitions of unity
injective proper maps to locally compact spaces are equivalently the closed embeddings
locally compact and second-countable spaces are sigma-compact
Theorems
Analysis Theorems
The Reidemeister moves are local changes to link diagrams which can be realised as isotopies between the link diagrams from which they arise. Because of Reidemeister’s theorem, Theorem , they are of fundamental importance in knot theory, allowing knots and links to be treated purely combinatorially and diagrammatically.
The moves were introduced in the book Reidemeister.
The convention below is that part of a link diagram is shown with the ‘move’ indicated, but that outside that, the diagram of the link is unchanged. As usual in knot theory, everything is up to planar isotopy?.
The first Reidemeister move, or R1 move, allows either of the following replacements of a fragment of a link diagram to be made.
The second Reidemeister move, or R2 move, allows either of the following replacements of a fragment of a link diagram to be made.
The third Reidemeister move, or R3 move, allows the following replacement of a fragment of a link diagram to be made.
A pair of link diagrams and are isotopic, or isotopic by moves, or equivalent if there is a finite sequence of the moves R1, R2 and R3 taking to up to planar isotopy.
A pair of link diagrams and are regularly isotopic if there is a finite sequence of the moves R2 and R3 taking to up to planar isotopy?.
Both isotopy and and regular isotopy define equivalence relations on link diagrams.
There are a number of variants of the R3 move. All of them can be obtained as a finite sequence of the Reidemeister moves as defined above.
The following crucial theorem establishes that the Reidemeister moves are of central significance in knot theory.
Let and be links, and let and be link diagrams of and respectively. Then and are equivalent if and only if is isotopic to .
The key idea of the proof is that of subdivision. Working piecewise-linearly, one can reduce to the consideration of a few ‘minimal’ moves on knot diagrams, which one shows can be obtained as a finite sequence of Reidemeister moves. See for example section 2.1 of Kauffman.
Because of Theorem , we can use the Reidemeister moves to verify invariance of a potential link invariant. For instance, as none of the moves alters the number of components of a link diagram, the number of components is an isotopy invariant (which is not at all surprising!). We can conclude that the Hopf link and the Borromean rings are not isotopic.
A slightly deeper observation is that the linking number is a link invariant, for which see that entry.
3-colourability is a knot invariant as is easy to check. This shows, for instance, that the trefoil knot is not equivalent to the unknot, and hence shows, very simply, that non-trivial knots exist. It also shows that the figure eight knot is not equivalent to the trefoil.
The original source is the following.
Simple examples of invariants under the Reidemeister Moves are given in, for instance, the following.
Nick Gilbert, Tim Porter, Knots and surfaces, Oxford University Press (1994) [ISBN:9780198514909]
Louis H. Kauffman, Knot diagrammatics, Handbook of knot theory, Elsevier, 233 - 318, 2005 arXiv:math/0410329
Most texts on Knot Theory contain discussions of the Reidemeister Moves.
Last revised on April 3, 2023 at 12:25:20. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.