In this talk we describe some recent results relating, on the one hand, to a method of quantizing a model of gravity in two space and one time dimensions, and on the other, to an algebraic structure - quantum matrix pairs - appearing in this context, which has many similarities with quantum groups.

References:

1. J. E. Nelson and R. F. Picken, Quantum holonomies in (2+1)-dimensional gravity, gr-qc/9911005.
2. J. E. Nelson and R. F. Picken, Quantum matrix pairs, math.QA/9911015.