This book is an elementary introduction to knot theory. Unlike many other books on knot theory, this book has practically no prerequisites; it requires only basic plane and spatial Euclidean geometry but no knowledge of topology or group theory. It contains the first elementary proof of the existence of the Alexander polynomial of a knot or a link based on the Conway axioms, particularly the Conway skein relation. The book also contains an elementary exposition of the Jones polynomial, HOMFLY polynomial and Vassiliev knot invariants constructed using the Kontsevich integral. Additionally,...

This volume contains the proceedings of the Alexandre Vinogradov Memorial Conference on Diffieties, Cohomological Physics, and Other Animals, held from December 13-17, 2021, at the Independent University of Moscow and Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia. The papers are devoted to various interrelations of nonlinear PDEs with geometry and integrable systems. The topics discussed are: gravitational and electromagnetic fields in General Relativity, nonlocal geometry of PDEs, Legendre foliated cocycles on contact manifolds, presymplectic gauge PDEs and Lagrangian BV formalism, jet geometry...