|
Organizers |
Quandle Queries
by
Alissa S. Crans
Loyola Marymount University
Coauthors: J. Scott Carter, Mohamed Elhamdadi, Masahico Saito
As the kickoff to the weekend we begin with an overview of quandles, including a definition and a handful of examples. Roughly speaking, a quandle is a set equipped with two binary operations satisfying axioms that capture the essential properties of the operations of conjugation in a group and algebraically encode the three Reidemeister moves. In preparation for numerous talks this weekend we will briefly describe quandle cohomology, invariants, and applications. We will continue by exploring the relationship between quandles and Lie algebras, emphasizing the significant role played by the self-distributive operations that each of these structures possess. In particular, we will consider how quandles provide a conceptual explanation of the passage from a Lie group to its Lie algebra.
Date received: November 13, 2006
Copyright © 2006 by the author(s). The author(s) of this work and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Topology Atlas. Document # catp-11.