这是一本生动的关于数学纽结的说明书，将吸引各式各样的读者，从寻求传统学习以外经验的本科生，到想要悠闲介绍这个主题的数学家。刚开始深入学习的研究生将会发现这是一份有价值的概述，读者只需要线性代数的训练，就可以理解书中提到的数学内容。当从线性代数和基本的群论中引入工具研究纽结的性质时，拓扑和代数之间的相互作用，即代数拓扑，在书中早早出现。
Livingston带领读者通过这个课题的概览，展示如何使用线性代数的技巧来解决一些复杂问题，包括数学中最美丽的主题之一：对称。本书最后讨论了高维纽结理论，以及该学科的一些最新进展，包括Conway、Jones和Kauffman的多项式。补充部分介绍了基本群，它是代数拓扑的核心。

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PREFACE
Chapter 1 A CENTURY OF KNOT THEORY
Chapter 2 WHAT Is A KNoT?
Section 1 Wild Knots and Unknottings
Section 2 The Definition of a Knot
Section 3 Equivalence of Knots, Deformations
Section 4 Diagrams and Projections
Section 5 Orientations
Chapter 3 COMBINATORIAL TECHNIQUES
Section 1 Reidemeister Moves
Section 2 Colorings
Section 3 A Generalization of Colorability, mod p Labelings
Section 4 Matrices, Labelings, and Determinants
Section 5 The Alexander Polynomial
Chapter 4 GEOMETRIC TECHNIQUES
Section 1 Surfaces and Homeomorphisms
Section 2 The Classification of Surfaces
Section 3 Seifert Surfaces and the Genus of a Knot
Section 4 Surgery on Surfaces
Section 5 Connected Sums of Knots and Prime Decompositions
Chapter 5 ALGEBRAIC TECHNIQUES
Section 1 Symmetric Groups
Section 2 Knots and Groups
Section 3 Conjugation and the Labeling Theorem
Section 4 Equations in Groups and the Group of a Knot
Section 5 The Fundamental Group
Chapter 6 GEOMETRY, ALGEBRA, AND THE ALEXANDER POLYNOMIAL
Section 1 The Seifert Matrix
Section 2 Seifert Matrices and the Alexander Polynomial
Section 3 The Signature of a Knot, and other S-Equivalence Invariants
Section 4 Knot Groups and the Alexander Polynomial
Chapter 7 NUMERICAL INVARIANTS
Section 1 Summary of Numerical Invariants
Section 2 New Invariants
Section 3 Braids and Bridges
Section 4 Relations Between the Numerical Invariants
Section 5 Independence of Numerical Invariants
Chapter 8 SYMMETRIES OF KNOTS
Section 1 Amphicheiral and Reversible Knots
Section 2 Periodic Knots
Section 3 The Murasugi Conditions
Section 4 Periodic Seifert Surfaces and Edmonds' Theorem
Section 5 Applications of the Murasugi and Edmonds Conditions
Chapter 9 HIGH-DIMENSIONAL KNOT THEORY
Section 1 Defining High-dimensional Knots
Section 2 Three Dimensions from a 2-dimensional Perspective
Section 3 Three-dimensional Cross-sections of a 4-dimensional Knot
Section 4 Slice Knots
Section 5 The Knot Concordance Group
Chapter 10 NEw COMBINATORIAL TECHNIQUES
Section 1 The Conway Polynomial of a Knot
Section 2 New Polynomial Invariants
Section 3 Kauffman's Bracket Polynomial
Appendix 1 KNOT TABLE
Appendix 2 ALEXANDER POLYNOMIALS
REFERENCES
INDEX