Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

Let K be a tame knot in S^3. Then the Alexander polynomial is knot invariant, which consists of a Laurent polynomial arising from the infinite cyclic cover of the knot complement. We will discuss the construction of the Alexander polynomial and, more generally, the Alexander invariant from a Seifert form on the knot. In addition, we will see some connections between the Alexander polynomial and other knot invariants, such as the genus and crossing number.