X-Nico

unusual facts about alternating link



William Menasco

Menasco, along with Morwen Thistlethwaite proved the Tait flyping conjecture, which states that given any two reduced alternating diagrams D1,D2 of an oriented, prime alternating link, D1 may be transformed to D2 by means of a sequence of certain simple moves called flypes.


see also

Alternating knot

Menasco, applying Thurston's hyperbolization theorem for Haken manifolds, showed that any prime, non-split alternating link is hyperbolic, i.e. the link complement has a hyperbolic geometry, unless the link is a torus link.