Number the seven crossings from top to bottom. Orient the strand entering the top-left arch downward. With the usual positive braid crossing convention, the crossing signs are
To make the diagram calculation reproducible, its oriented Gauss code is
Subscripts record overpassing and underpassing. In this convention a positive trefoil knot has knot signature .
Label the seven Wirtinger generators successively between undercrossings, beginning just before the encounter . The Alexander matrix, with rows ordered by crossing number, is
At a positive crossing the Fox derivative entries at the overpassing, incoming and outgoing arcs are ; at a negative crossing a unit multiple of the row has entries . Deleting the last row and column gives determinant . Hence a symmetric normalization of the Alexander polynomial of a knot is
In particular, in this displayed normalization; multiplying by gives normalization and does not change any conclusion.
The Seifert algorithm produces four Seifert circles and seven bands. Its connected Seifert surface has Euler characteristic , and so genus . Conversely, the Alexander breadth bound on Seifert genus gives . Therefore
For the knot signature, use the alternating diagram signature formula: for a reduced alternating knot diagram,
where counts circles in the all- bracket smoothing and counts positive crossings. Here the all- smoothing has four circles, the all- smoothing has five, and . Thus
The opposite global knot signature convention gives instead.
For the slice genus, the Levine-Tristram signature bound on the slice genus at gives . There is also an explicit unknotting crossing: switch crossing . A type III Reidemeister move across the triangle formed by crossings makes crossing a removable kink. Next cancel pairs and by type II Reidemeister moves; crossings and then become removable kinks. This leaves the unknot. One crossing change gives a genus-one knot cobordism to the unknot: its movie consists of two oriented band moves, and capping the final unknot by a disk in gives a surface of genus one. Consequently
Seifert algorithm 2026-10-07
Apply the oriented smoothing to every crossing of an oriented knot diagram, fill the resulting Seifert circles by disjoint disks at suitable heights, and reconnect them by twisted bands at the original crossings. The boundary is the original knot. If the connected surface has disks and bands, its Euler characteristic is and its genus is .