A Survey of Quandle Ideas

Abstract

This article surveys many aspects of the theory of quandles which algebraically encode the Reidemeister moves. In addition to knot theory, quandles have found applications in other areas which are only mentioned in passing here. The main purpose is to give a short introduction to the subject and a guide to the applications that have been found thus far for quandle cocycle invariants.Comment: Submitted to conference proceedings; embarrassing misspellings of various names corrected. Many apologies and thanks to readers who pointed out correction