Mazur's swindle
Daniel Lowengrub


Mazur's swindle is a trick which can allow one to solve problems in different areas of mathematics without using anything more than some elementary properties of infinity. Our main application will be to prove that the result of joining two non-trivial knots is again a non-trivial knot without using any knot theory. We'll then see some other applications of the swindle in algebra and analysis.