other people's polynomials, that is. vaughan jones came up with his own in 1983 and revolutionized the centuries-old study of knots. then he got the fields medal for it. in this talk, we'll discuss some knot theory basics, construct the jones polynomial and prove (!) its invariance, and explore some applications. prerequisite: middle school algebra. so, who's down with knot theo-ry? all the homies!