His most remarkable contribution, however, was that in the course of this work he discovered a new polynomial invariant for knots which led to surprising connections between apparently quite different areas of mathematics. ###>Sa plus remarquable contribution, cependant, est que, dans le cadre de ces travaux il a découvert un nouveau polynôme invariant de noeuds qui ont conduit à des connexions entre surprenant apparemment tout à fait différents domaines des mathématiques.