The duality conjecture in formal knot theory (Q1074907)

The first three sections of this paper prove the following strengthened version of the duality conjecture arising in Kauffman's formal knot theory: the state polynomial \(<K>\) of a knot K is invariant under the involution of \({\mathbb{Z}}[B,W]\) which sends B to -W. The fourth section gives a new, simpler proof of the clock theorem of Kauffman, reformulating it as asserting that the set of maximal trees in a connected planar graph is a distributive lattice with respect to a naturally defined partial order.