Knots to a Mathematician: Very short lectures on knots by various topologists.


  • 01: Braids and Knots (3 min. 6 sec.)
    Joan Birman, Columbia University. Recorded in New York City, September 1990

  • 02: Symmetries in Knots(5 min. 34 sec.)
    Raymond Lickorish, Cambridge University. Recorded in Los Angeles, June 1990

  • 03: Knots Don't Cancel (3 min. 15 sec.)
    John Conway (1937-2020), Princeton University. Recorded in Princeton, March 1990

  • 04: Ribbon Knots (2 min. 14 sec.)
    Robion Kirby, University of California, Berkeley. Recorded in Berkeley, May 1990

  • 05: Knots to Narnia (6 min. 40 sec.)
    William Thurston (1946-2012), University of Caliornia, Berkeley. Recorded in Berkeley, March 1992

  • 06: Knots to Narnia - in classi (3 min.)
    William Thurston, University of Caliornia, Berkeley. Bill died August 21, 2012. Recorded in Berkeley, March 1992

  • 07: Knots and the Poincaré Conjecture (1 min. 20 sec.)
    Andrew Casson, University of California, Berkeley (Now at Yale University). Recorded in Berkeley, May 1990

  • 08: The Birth of the Jones Polynomial (3min. 52 sec.)
    Joan Birman, Columbia University. Recorded in New York City, September 1990 (Note: in these images, the left and right-hand trefoils are reversed.)

  • 09: The Knot on my Shirt (1 min. 54 sec.)
    Vaughan Jones, University of California, Berkeley. Recorded in Berkeley, March 1992

  • 10: Knots and Statistical Mechanics (4 min. 25 sec.)
    Vaughan Jones (1952-2020), University of California, Berkeley. Recorded in Berkeley, March 1992.

  • 11: Knots in DNA Analysis (2 min. 38 sec.)
    Nicholas Cozzarelli (1938-2006), Department of Molecular Biology, University of California, Berkeley. Recorded in Berkeley, May 1990 (Pam Davis assisted with the recording.)

  • 12: Topology of Kinetoplast DNA (2 min. 40 sec.)
    Sylvia Spengler, Program in Mathematics and Molecular Biology, University of California, Berkeley. Recorded in Berkeley, May 1990

  • 13: Four Shoe Knots

  • 14: Knotted Texts

  • A Day in the Life of a Knot (12 minutes)
    1990, with Pam Davis.

  • Knots to a Mathematician