The Determinant and the Signature

From Knot Atlas
Revision as of 22:28, 25 August 2005 by Drorbn (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigationJump to search


(For In[1] see Setup)

In[2]:= ?KnotDet

KnotDet[K] returns the determinant of a knot K.

In[3]:= ?KnotSignature

KnotSignature[K] returns the signature of a knot K.

Thus, for example, the knots 5_1 and 10_132 have the same determinant (and even the same Alexander and Jones polynomials), but different signatures:

In[4]:=

KnotDet /@ {Knot[5, 1], Knot[10, 132]}

Out[4]=
{5, 5}
In[5]:=

{Equal @@ (Jones[#][q]& /@ {Knot[5, 1], Knot[10, 132]}), Equal @@ (Alexander[#][t]& /@ {Knot[5, 1], Knot[10, 132]})}

Out[5]=
{True, True}
In[6]:=

KnotSignature /@ {Knot[5, 1], Knot[10, 132]}

Out[6]=
{-4, 0}