Consider the symmetric Laurent polynomial
It satisfies , so the Alexander polynomial realization theorem gives a knot with . The polynomial is not a unit of , whereas
Here functional calculus convergence means that for every ,
Embed in and write . The hypothesis gives in the weak operator topology. Since and are unitary operators,
Thus in the strong operator topology. Applying the same argument to the adjoints gives strongly.
Products of uniformly bounded strongly convergent operators converge strongly, so for every integer ,
strongly, with negative interpreted through adjoints. Therefore convergence holds for every Laurent polynomial. The Stone-Weierstrass theorem says that Laurent polynomials are uniformly dense in . Since the continuous functional calculus is contractive, uniform approximation finishes the proof for every .