On knots that are universal (Q1068384)

A knot or link L in \(S^ 3\) is called universal if every closed, orientable 3-manifold can be represented as a covering of \(S^ 3\) branched over L \textit{W. Thurston} introduced this concept and proved the existence of such links in his paper [''Universal links'', preprint, 1982], and he asked if the figure-eight knot is universal. The authors have already proved that the Whitehead link, the Borromean rings and the knot \(9_{46}\) are universal in their previous paper [Collect. Math. 34, 19- 28 (1983; Zbl 0554.57004)]. In the paper under review they prove that, for every rational knot or link L which is not toroidal, there is a covering \(p: S^ 3\to S^ 3\) branched over L such that the preimage of the branched set contains the Borromean rings. Combining these results, they arrive at the conclusion that every non-toroidal knot or link is universal, and the figure-eight knot is also universal.