Minimal generating sets of Reidemeister moves (Q611827)

Summary: It is well known that any two diagrams representing the same oriented link are related by a finite sequence of Reidemeister moves \(\Omega1, \Omega 2\) and \(\Omega 3\). Depending on orientations of fragments involved in the moves, one may distinguish 4 different versions of each of the \(\Omega 1\) and \(\Omega 2\) moves, and 8 versions of the \(\Omega 3\) move. We introduce a minimal generating set of 4 oriented Reidemeister moves, which includes two \(\Omega 1\) moves, one \(\Omega 2\) move, and one \(\Omega 3\) move. We then study which other sets of up to 5 oriented moves generate all moves, and show that only few of them do. Some commonly considered sets are shown not to be generating. An unexpected non-equivalence of different \(\Omega 3\) moves is discussed.