6-component Brunnian Link Brunnian Links

These are nontrivial links that become trivial if any number of components are removed. Below are examples of Brunnian links with three, four, and six components. Note that except for the four component link, these links are not in their minimal projection. The three component link (when in a minimal projection) is also known as the Borromean Rings. The six component link was constructed and relaxed using KnotPlot.

3-component Brunnian Link 4-component Brunnian Link
Oblique view of a 6-component Brunnian Link
Oblique view		 Top view of a 6-component Brunnian Link
Top view
Side view of a 6-component Brunnian Link
Side view

Check out the animation of this link falling apart when the one component is removed (note: the colours are slightly different in the animation):

Stereoscopic 3-D views of two of the links on this page are on-line, as well as a fancy raytracing of the above three links floating in a deep blue sea.

Go to the KnotPlot Site or Rob Scharein's home page.

css     xhtml