The Hakubi Project

Knot theory, which is one of the research fields in topology, aims to understand the structure of knotted strings in a space. In the 1980's, Vaughan F. R. Jones discovered a quantum invariant of knots, and that was a turning point in the history of knot theory. Quantum invariants originate not only in topology but also in mathematical physics related to quantum mechanics, and are applied to various fields in mathematics, thus forming a new area called Quantum topology. In this seminar, I will explain Quantum topology mainly by focusing on this discipline's background and motivation.