Fig. 13: The classification of Q8-colored links.
a A surgery operation that can be employed to alter the linking number between two loops by an integer multiple of two. b The nontrivial classes of Q8-colored links, and the values of the invariant Q they correspond to. c In a looped chain configuration, it is possible to flip two of the three bicolorings by letting one of the loops go around the other two. d In a Borromean rings configuration, it is possible to flip any single bicoloring. In the picture, the blue loop is split into two loops, one of which goes around the red loop, resulting in the flipping of the red bicoloring. The two blue loops cross each other during this process.
