Computing the writhing number of a polygonal knot Agarwal, Pankaj K Herbert Edelsbrunner ; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9823-6833 Wang, Yusu The writhing number measures the global geometry of a closed space curve or knot. We show that this measure is related to the average winding number of its Gauss map. Using this relationship, we give an algorithm for computing the writhing number for a polygonal knot with n edges in time roughly proportional to n(1.6). We also implement a different, simple algorithm and provide experimental evidence for its practical efficiency. Springer 2004 info:eu-repo/semantics/article doc-type:article text http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_2df8fbb1 https://research-explorer.ista.ac.at/record/3990 Agarwal P, Edelsbrunner H, Wang Y. Computing the writhing number of a polygonal knot. <i>Discrete &#38; Computational Geometry</i>. 2004;32(1):37-53. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00454-004-2864-x">10.1007/s00454-004-2864-x</a> info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1007/s00454-004-2864-x info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess