Knots

Summary

Schools taking part come from Truro, Newcastle, Italy and Johannesburg. (No further bookings are being taken for this conference).

A one-day conference on 7 April, 2003 for 6th form students in the style of a Master Class. The day will start at 10am and end by 3.30pm (all times British Summer Time, that is, GMT + 1 hour). For further details of the plan for the day, go to http://www.motivate.maths.org/teachers/1_conference_format.htm.

It will start with a videoconference at which Stephen will set the scene for the day. Students will then be given tasks to do, and they will alternate practical tasks with videoconferences at which they discuss their work with the other schools involved.

Knot theory is an important topic in topology, which Stephen will make accessible to both Year 12 and 13 students in this videoconference. This one-day introduction to knot theory will give students an idea of the kind of maths studied at university. It has interesting links with various other parts of mathematics, and important applications in other areas of the sciences. For example, DNA is knotted, so knot theory is important to biologists.

Materials needed for each student on the day:

• several 30cm pieces of nylon string
• some means to fix the ends together securely: tape, or a safe source of heat to fuse them
• lots of paper and pencils

In addition, each class should have a set of examples of knots, such as those described under "materials" on the web page http://www.c3.lanl.gov/mega-math/workbk/knot/knobs.html

Talk

• Introduction to the videoconference. An introduction to the material Stephen will cover in the videoconference, and the exercises the students will do, plus a great website to visit.
• Stephen's talk.

Project work

• Preliminary work and reading for the Knots videoconference. Some resources on the web for you to read and have a go at in advance of the videoconference. This will help you understand the videoconference better, and give you an idea of what this topic is about.