The large size limit of matrix integrals with quartic potential may be used
to count alternating links and tangles. The removal of redundancies amounts to
renormalizations of the potential. This extends into two directions: higher
genus and the counting of "virtual" links and tangles; and the counting of
"coloured" alternating links and tangles. We discuss the asymptotic behavior of
the number of tangles as the number of crossings goes to infinity.Comment: chapter of the book Random Matrix Theory, Eds Akemann, Baik and Di
Francesc