Recent success with the four-dimensional Poincaré conjecture has revived interest in low-dimensional topology, especially the three-dimensional Poincaré conjecture and other aspects of the problems of classifying three-dimensional manifolds. These problems have a driving force, and have generated a great body of research, as well as insight.The main topics treated in this book include a paper by V Poenaru on the Poincaré conjecture and its ramifications, giving an insight into the herculean work of the author on the subject. Steve Armentrout's paper on “Bing's dogbone space” belongs to the topics in three-dimensional topology motivated by the Poincaré conjecture. S Singh gives a nice synthesis of Armentrout's work. Also included in the volume are shorter original papers, dealing with somewhat different aspects of geometry, and dedicated to Armentrout by his colleagues — Augustin Banyaga (and Jean-Pierre Ezin), David Hurtubise, Hossein Movahedi-Lankarani and Robert Wells.

Recent success with the four-dimensional Poincare conjecture has revived interest in low-dimensional topology, especially the three-dimensional Poincare conjecture and other aspects of the problems of classifying three-dimensional manifolds. These problems have a driving force, and have generated a great body of research, as well as insight. The main topics treated in this book include a paper by V Poenaru on the Poincare conjecture and its ramifications, giving an insight into the herculean work of the author on the subject. Steve Armentrout's paper on "Bing's dogbone space" belongs to the topics in three-dimensional topology motivated by the Poincare conjecture. S Singh gives a nice synthesis of Armentrout's work. Also included in the volume are shorter original papers, dealing with somewhat different aspects of geometry, and dedicated to Armentrout by his colleagues -- Augustin Banyaga (and Jean-Pierre Ezin), David Hurtubise, Hossein Movahedi-Lankarani and Robert Wells.

The Stony Brook Conference, "Graphs and Patterns in Mathematics and Theoretical Physics", was dedicated to Dennis Sullivan in honor of his sixtieth birthday. The event's scientific content, which was suggested by Sullivan, was largely based on mini-courses and survey lectures. The main idea was to help researchers and graduate students in mathematics and theoretical physics who encounter graphs in their research to overcome conceptual barriers. The collection begins with Sullivan's paper, "Sigma models and string topology," which describes a background algebraic structure for the sigma model based on algebraic topology and transversality. Other contributions to the volume were organized into five sections: Feynman Diagrams, Algebraic Structures, Manifolds: Invariants and Mirror Symmetry, Combinatorial Aspects of Dynamics, and Physics. These sections, along with more research-oriented articles, contain the following surveys: "Feynman diagrams for pedestrians and mathematicians" by M. Polyak, "Notes on universal algebra" by A. Voronov, "Unimodal maps and hierarchical models" by M. Yampolsky, and "Quantum geometry in action: big bang and black holes" by A. Ashtekar. This comprehensive volume is suitable for graduate students and research mathematicians interested in graph theory and its applications in mathematics and physics.

This book consists of a selection of articles devoted to new ideas and developments in low dimensional topology. Low dimensions refer to dimensions three and four for the topology of manifolds and their submanifolds. Thus we have papers related to both manifolds and to knotted submanifolds of dimension one in three (classical knot theory) and two in four (surfaces in four dimensional spaces). Some of the work involves virtual knot theory where the knots are abstractions of classical knots but can be represented by knots embedded in surfaces. This leads both to new interactions with classical topology and to new interactions with essential combinatorics.

This volume consists of the proceedings of a conference held at the University College of North Wales (Bangor) in July of 1979. It assembles research papers which reflect diverse currents in low-dimensional topology. The topology of 3-manifolds, hyperbolic geometry and knot theory emerge as major themes. The inclusion of surveys of work in these areas should make the book very useful to students as well as researchers.