Louis Kauffman

Louis H. Kauffman (Louis Hirsch Kauffman, born February 3, 1945) is an American mathematician who is known for his work in knot theory.

Kauffman studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he made his bachelor's degree in 1966. He was with William Browder at Princeton University PhD (Cyclic Branched Covers, O ( n) Actions and Hyper Surface Singularities ) 1972. He is currently a professor at the University of Chicago. He was, inter alia, a visiting professor at the University of Zaragoza, the University of Iowa, the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques ( IHES ) in Paris, the Institute Henri Poincaré in Paris and the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge.

Kauffman examined nodes and their relations to quantum field theory, statistical mechanics. From him the Kauffman polynomials come in knot theory and the virtual knot theory. He gave ( similar to those of statistical mechanics ) interpretations of the Alexander and Jones invariants of knot theory by state totals. In the Jones invariant he used for his imported by him bracket polynomials.

Kauffman also deals with cybernetics. He was 2007 President of the American Society for Cybernetics and received the 1993 Warren McCulloch and Price. He has a column in the magazine Cybernetics and Human Knowing.

He is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

  • On Knots. Princeton University Press, 1987
  • Knots and Physics. World Scientific, 1991; 2001 Nodes. Diagrams, state models, Polynominvarianten. Spectrum, Heidelberg / Berlin / Oxford 1995, ISBN 3-86025-232-1
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