Knots have always been an integral part of
life, and have only been found to have mathematical uses recently.
This paper only explored a brief introduction to knots. Proving knot
equivalence is the core of knot theory, and without invariants this is
very difficult. Hence, invariants are an important part of knot theory.
Another more algebraic area of knot theory involves drawing comparisons
between knot composition and multiplication within the integers.
Although we only examined a few basic areas
of knot theory, they are an important foundation to further understand
the field and apply it in areas of physics, chemistry, and molecular biology
in the study of the structure of DNA during replication. DNA structure,
when simplified, appears like many knots mathematicians study. This
allows them to understand the function of DNA better, since structure and
function are so closely related. See figure 26 for a diagram of DNA
structure being simplified into a knot.
For other interesting knots see: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/nest/imager/contributions/scharein/KnotSquare.html