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Unneccessarily sophisticated proofs that the trefoil is non-trivial

Topology Seminar

Unneccessarily sophisticated proofs that the trefoil is non-trivial

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Ryan Budney, University of Victoria

I will describe a sequence of closely-related but increasingly-sophisticated proofs of the non-triviality of the trefoil knot.  In the end we conclude the mapping-class group of a 4-manifold is non-trivial.