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The fifth in our 2005 lecture series
Figuring Minds

SATURDAY, November 5 at 5:00pm
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
A Talk about Knot Theory
by Ken Millett [IFF-L11]

at The Foshay Masonic Lodge
9635 Venice Blvd
Culver City
[Two blocks West of the Museum of Jurassic Technology and CLUI]

In mathematical lore, a topologist is a person who can’t tell the difference between a coffee cup and a donut, both objects being topologically the same. Of the many things topologists strive to categorize, one of the more enigmatic is knots. Though knotting is one of humanity’s oldest and most widespread activities, being documented in almost every culture on earth, at first glance it seems an unlikely subject for the formalisms of mathematics. But at the end of the nineteenth century mathematicians began to classify these twisted and braided forms, leading to a vast taxonomy of the species, whose members include the unknot, ideal knots, tame knots and wild knots.

Today, the insights of knot theory are being bought to bear on problems in biology and chemistry, specifically to understanding the structure of DNA and other macromolecules such proteins and polymers, and to fundamental issues in theoretical physics, where “string theory” proposes that all matter is composed of knot-like contortions in spacetime. In this lecture, Dr. Ken Millett, a leading knot theorist and professor of mathematics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will discuss the history, theory, and taxonomy of knots. The event will include hands-on activities making knots and attempting to answer such questions as how much rope is required to make a specific knot, and how we determine if two seemingly disparate knots might really be the same.

After the lecture please join us for a reception at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, two blocks away. The Museum has recently opened its wonderful new exhibition on string figures.