The classification of exceptional Dehn surgeries on 2-bridge knots (Q5929598)

In the unpublished but well-circulated W. Thurston notes on 3-manifolds, all of the manifolds resulting from Dehn surgery on a figure eight knot are analyzed in order to illustrate that the most 3-manifolds admit a hyperbolic metric. In fact, all but 10 surgeries result in a hyperbolic 3-manifold. Each of the exceptional surgeries result in either \(S^3\), a reducible manifold, a toroidal manifold, or a Seifert fiber space. In this paper, the authors extend the same analysis from the figure eight knot to the class of all 2-bridge knots. In order to do this they bring together many different results about 3-manifolds. Their paper relies heavily on the paper [\textit{A. E. Hatcher} and \textit{W. Thurston}, Invent. Math. 79, 225-246 (1985; Zbl 0602.57002)]. It uses \textit{C. Delman}'s construction of essential braided surfaces [Topology Appl. 63, No. 3, 201-221 (1995; Zbl 0873.57007)], \textit{R. Roberts}'s construction of essential branched surfaces [Comment. Math. Helv. 70, No. 4, 516-545 (1995; Zbl 0855.57009)] and work of each author individually [\textit{M. Brittenham}, Topology 37, No. 3, 665-672 (1998; Zbl 0912.57010); \textit{Y.-Q. Wu}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 351, No. 6, 2275-2294 (1999; Zbl 0919.57008)].