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Joseph O'Rourke
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Here is one piece of software, the Book Knot Simplifier, by Maria Andreeva, Ivan Dynnikov, Sergey Koval, Konrad Polthier, and Iskander Taimanov.

Here we offer a set of tools for manipulating knots and links in the three-space by using the three-page presentation of links, which was proposed and developed by I. Dynnikov in 1[3].

The approach is based on a simple and very well known observation that every link in the three-space is topologically equivalent to a link that lies entirely in a three-page book, i.e. the union of three half-planes with common boundary. Though being not convenient for human perception, this way of presenting links seems to be very efficient for handling knots by computer. It provides a very quick way from a combinatorial description of a link to its three-dimensional presentation. A three-page link admits a lot of transformations that preserve its isotopy class and can be easily found. This fact is used in the knot simplifying tool included herein.


   unknot31
   The unknot with 31 crossings

Joseph O'Rourke
  • 150.8k
  • 36
  • 358
  • 958