Almost Alternating Link
Call a projection of a link an almost alternating projection if one crossing change in the projection makes it an alternating projection. Then an almost alternating link is a link with an almost alternating projection, but no alternating projection. Every alternating knot has an almost alternating projection. A prime knot which is almost alternating is either a torus knot or a hyperbolic knot. Therefore, no satellite knot is an almost alternating knot.
All nonalternating 9-crossing prime knots are almost alternating. Of the 393 nonalternating knots and links with 11 or fewer crossings, all but five are known to be almost alternating (and 3 of these have 11 crossings). The fate of the remaining five is not known. The (q,2)-, (4,3)-, and (5,3)-torus knots are almost alternating (Adams 1994, p. 142).
See also
Alternating Knot, LinkExplore with Wolfram|Alpha
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References
Adams, C. C. The Knot Book: An Elementary Introduction to the Mathematical Theory of Knots. New York: W. H. Freeman, pp. 139-146, 1994.Referenced on Wolfram|Alpha
Almost Alternating LinkCite this as:
Weisstein, Eric W. "Almost Alternating Link." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/AlmostAlternatingLink.html