The interface of knots and physics : American Mathematical Society short course, January 2-3, 1995, San Francisco, California

This book is the result of an AMS Short Course on Knots and Physics that was held in San Francisco (January 1994). The authors use ideas and methods of mathematical physics to extract topological information about knots and manifolds. The book features a basic introduction to knot polynomials in relation to statistical link invariants as well as concise introductions to topological quantum field theories and to the role of knot theory in quantum gravity.