
In
mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''
graph
Graph may refer to:
Mathematics
*Graph (discrete mathematics), a structure made of vertices and edges
**Graph theory, the study of such graphs and their properties
*Graph (topology), a topological space resembling a graph in the sense of discre ...
s'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of ''
vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are connected by ''
edges
Edge or EDGE may refer to:
Technology Computing
* Edge computing, a network load-balancing system
* Edge device, an entry point to a computer network
* Adobe Edge, a graphical development application
* Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...
'' (also called ''links'' or ''lines''). A distinction is made between undirected graphs, where edges link two vertices symmetrically, and directed graphs, where edges link two vertices asymmetrically. Graphs are one of the principal objects of study in
discrete mathematics
Discrete mathematics is the study of mathematical structures that can be considered "discrete" (in a way analogous to discrete variables, having a bijection with the set of natural numbers) rather than "continuous" (analogously to continu ...
.
Definitions
Definitions in graph theory vary. The following are some of the more basic ways of defining graphs and related
mathematical structure
In mathematics, a structure is a set endowed with some additional features on the set (e.g. an operation, relation, metric, or topology). Often, the additional features are attached or related to the set, so as to provide it with some additi ...
s.
Graph

In one restricted but very common sense of the term, a graph is an
ordered pair
In mathematics, an ordered pair (''a'', ''b'') is a pair of objects. The order in which the objects appear in the pair is significant: the ordered pair (''a'', ''b'') is different from the ordered pair (''b'', ''a'') unless ''a'' = ''b''. (In co ...
comprising:
*
, a
set of vertices (also called nodes or points);
*
, a
set of edges (also called links or lines), which are
unordered pair In mathematics, an unordered pair or pair set is a set of the form , i.e. a set having two elements ''a'' and ''b'' with no particular relation between them, where = . In contrast, an ordered pair (''a'', ''b'') has ''a'' as its first e ...
s of vertices (that is, an edge is associated with two distinct vertices).
To avoid ambiguity, this type of object may be called precisely an undirected simple graph.
In the edge
, the vertices
and
are called the endpoints of the edge. The edge is said to join
and
and to be incident on
and on
. A vertex may exist in a graph and not belong to an edge.
Multiple edges
In graph theory, multiple edges (also called parallel edges or a multi-edge), are, in an undirected graph, two or more edges that are incident to the same two vertices, or in a directed graph, two or more edges with both the same tail vertex a ...
, not allowed under the definition above, are two or more edges that join the same two vertices.
In one more general sense of the term allowing multiple edges, a graph is an ordered triple
comprising:
*
, a
set of vertices (also called nodes or points);
*
, a
set of edges (also called links or lines);
*
, an incidence function mapping every edge to an
unordered pair In mathematics, an unordered pair or pair set is a set of the form , i.e. a set having two elements ''a'' and ''b'' with no particular relation between them, where = . In contrast, an ordered pair (''a'', ''b'') has ''a'' as its first e ...
of vertices (that is, an edge is associated with two distinct vertices).
To avoid ambiguity, this type of object may be called precisely an undirected
multigraph
In mathematics, and more specifically in graph theory, a multigraph is a graph which is permitted to have multiple edges (also called ''parallel edges''), that is, edges that have the same end nodes. Thus two vertices may be connected by mo ...
.
A
loop
Loop or LOOP may refer to:
Brands and enterprises
* Loop (mobile), a Bulgarian virtual network operator and co-founder of Loop Live
* Loop, clothing, a company founded by Carlos Vasquez in the 1990s and worn by Digable Planets
* Loop Mobile, ...
is an edge that joins a vertex to itself. Graphs as defined in the two definitions above cannot have loops, because a loop joining a vertex
to itself is the edge (for an undirected simple graph) or is incident on (for an undirected multigraph)
which is not in
. So to allow loops the definitions must be expanded. For undirected simple graphs, the definition of
should be modified to
. For undirected multigraphs, the definition of
should be modified to
. To avoid ambiguity, these types of objects may be called undirected simple graph permitting loops and undirected multigraph permitting loops (sometimes also undirected
pseudograph
In mathematics, and more specifically in graph theory, a multigraph is a graph which is permitted to have multiple edges (also called ''parallel edges''), that is, edges that have the same end nodes. Thus two vertices may be connected by mor ...
), respectively.
and
are usually taken to be finite, and many of the well-known results are not true (or are rather different) for infinite graphs because many of the arguments fail in the
infinite case. Moreover,
is often assumed to be non-empty, but
is allowed to be the empty set. The order of a graph is
, its number of vertices. The size of a graph is
, its number of edges. The degree or valency of a vertex is the number of edges that are incident to it, where a loop is counted twice. The degree of a graph is the maximum of the degrees of its vertices.
In an undirected simple graph of order ''n'', the maximum degree of each vertex is and the maximum size of the graph is .
The edges of an undirected simple graph permitting loops
induce a symmetric
homogeneous relation
In mathematics, a homogeneous relation (also called endorelation) over a set ''X'' is a binary relation over ''X'' and itself, i.e. it is a subset of the Cartesian product . This is commonly phrased as "a relation on ''X''" or "a (binary) relation ...
on the vertices of
that is called the adjacency relation of
. Specifically, for each edge
, its endpoints
and
are said to be adjacent to one another, which is denoted
.
Directed graph

A directed graph or digraph is a graph in which edges have orientations.
In one restricted but very common sense of the term, a directed graph is an ordered pair
comprising:
*
, a
set of ''vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'');
*
, a
set of ''edges'' (also called ''directed edges'', ''directed links'', ''directed lines'', ''arrows'' or ''arcs'') which are
ordered pair
In mathematics, an ordered pair (''a'', ''b'') is a pair of objects. The order in which the objects appear in the pair is significant: the ordered pair (''a'', ''b'') is different from the ordered pair (''b'', ''a'') unless ''a'' = ''b''. (In co ...
s of vertices (that is, an edge is associated with two distinct vertices).
To avoid ambiguity, this type of object may be called precisely a directed simple graph.
In the edge
directed from
to
, the vertices
and
are called the ''endpoints'' of the edge,
the ''tail'' of the edge and
the ''head'' of the edge. The edge is said to ''join''
and
and to be ''incident'' on
and on
. A vertex may exist in a graph and not belong to an edge. The edge
is called the ''inverted edge'' of
. ''
Multiple edges
In graph theory, multiple edges (also called parallel edges or a multi-edge), are, in an undirected graph, two or more edges that are incident to the same two vertices, or in a directed graph, two or more edges with both the same tail vertex a ...
'', not allowed under the definition above, are two or more edges with both the same tail and the same head.
In one more general sense of the term allowing multiple edges, a directed graph is an ordered triple
comprising:
*
, a
set of ''vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'');
*
, a
set of ''edges'' (also called ''directed edges'', ''directed links'', ''directed lines'', ''arrows'' or ''arcs'');
*
, an ''incidence function'' mapping every edge to an
ordered pair
In mathematics, an ordered pair (''a'', ''b'') is a pair of objects. The order in which the objects appear in the pair is significant: the ordered pair (''a'', ''b'') is different from the ordered pair (''b'', ''a'') unless ''a'' = ''b''. (In co ...
of vertices (that is, an edge is associated with two distinct vertices).
To avoid ambiguity, this type of object may be called precisely a directed multigraph.
A ''
loop
Loop or LOOP may refer to:
Brands and enterprises
* Loop (mobile), a Bulgarian virtual network operator and co-founder of Loop Live
* Loop, clothing, a company founded by Carlos Vasquez in the 1990s and worn by Digable Planets
* Loop Mobile, ...
'' is an edge that joins a vertex to itself. Directed graphs as defined in the two definitions above cannot have loops, because a loop joining a vertex
to itself is the edge (for a directed simple graph) or is incident on (for a directed multigraph)
which is not in
. So to allow loops the definitions must be expanded. For directed simple graphs, the definition of
should be modified to
. For directed multigraphs, the definition of
should be modified to
. To avoid ambiguity, these types of objects may be called precisely a directed simple graph permitting loops and a directed multigraph permitting loops (or a ''
quiver
A quiver is a container for holding arrows, bolts, ammo, projectiles, darts, or javelins. It can be carried on an archer's body, the bow, or the ground, depending on the type of shooting and the archer's personal preference. Quivers were tr ...
'') respectively.
The edges of a directed simple graph permitting loops
is a
homogeneous relation
In mathematics, a homogeneous relation (also called endorelation) over a set ''X'' is a binary relation over ''X'' and itself, i.e. it is a subset of the Cartesian product . This is commonly phrased as "a relation on ''X''" or "a (binary) relation ...
~ on the vertices of
that is called the ''adjacency relation'' of
. Specifically, for each edge
, its endpoints
and
are said to be ''adjacent'' to one another, which is denoted
~
.
Applications

Graphs can be used to model many types of relations and processes in physical, biological, social and information systems. Many practical problems can be represented by graphs. Emphasizing their application to real-world systems, the term ''network'' is sometimes defined to mean a graph in which attributes (e.g. names) are associated with the vertices and edges, and the subject that expresses and understands real-world systems as a network is called
network science
Network science is an academic field which studies complex networks such as telecommunication networks, computer networks, biological networks, cognitive and semantic networks, and social networks, considering distinct elements or actors repr ...
.
Computer science
Within
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...
,
cybernetics uses graphs to represent networks of communication, data organization, computational devices, the flow of computation, etc. For instance, the link structure of a
website
A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikip ...
can be represented by a directed graph, in which the vertices represent web pages and directed edges represent
links from one page to another. A similar approach can be taken to problems in social media, travel, biology, computer chip design, mapping the progression of neuro-degenerative diseases, and many other fields. The development of
algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
s to handle graphs is therefore of major interest in computer science. The
transformation of graphs is often formalized and represented by
graph rewrite systems. Complementary to
graph transformation
In computer science, graph transformation, or graph rewriting, concerns the technique of creating a new graph out of an original graph algorithmically. It has numerous applications, ranging from software engineering (software construction and also ...
systems focusing on rule-based in-memory manipulation of graphs are
graph database
A graph database (GDB) is a database that uses graph structures for semantic queries with nodes, edges, and properties to represent and store data. A key concept of the system is the ''graph'' (or ''edge'' or ''relationship''). The graph relat ...
s geared towards
transaction
Transaction or transactional may refer to:
Commerce
*Financial transaction, an agreement, communication, or movement carried out between a buyer and a seller to exchange an asset for payment
*Debits and credits in a Double-entry bookkeeping syst ...
-safe,
persistent storing and querying of
graph-structured data.
Linguistics
Graph-theoretic methods, in various forms, have proven particularly useful in
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...
, since natural language often lends itself well to discrete structure. Traditionally,
syntax and compositional semantics follow tree-based structures, whose expressive power lies in the
principle of compositionality
In semantics, mathematical logic and related disciplines, the principle of compositionality is the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them. ...
, modeled in a hierarchical graph. More contemporary approaches such as
head-driven phrase structure grammar Head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG) is a highly lexicalized, constraint-based grammar
developed by Carl Pollard and Ivan Sag. It is a type of phrase structure grammar, as opposed to a dependency grammar, and it is the immediate successor ...
model the syntax of natural language using
typed feature structures, which are
directed acyclic graph
In mathematics, particularly graph theory, and computer science, a directed acyclic graph (DAG) is a directed graph with no directed cycles. That is, it consists of vertices and edges (also called ''arcs''), with each edge directed from one v ...
s.
Within
lexical semantics
Lexical semantics (also known as lexicosemantics), as a subfield of linguistics, linguistic semantics, is the study of word meanings.Pustejovsky, J. (2005) Lexical Semantics: Overview' in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, second edition, V ...
, especially as applied to computers, modeling word meaning is easier when a given word is understood in terms of related words;
semantic network
A semantic network, or frame network is a knowledge base that represents semantic relations between concepts in a network. This is often used as a form of knowledge representation. It is a directed or undirected graph consisting of vertices ...
s are therefore important in
computational linguistics
Computational linguistics is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, comput ...
. Still, other methods in phonology (e.g.
optimality theory
In linguistics, Optimality Theory (frequently abbreviated OT) is a linguistic model proposing that the observed forms of language arise from the optimal satisfaction of conflicting constraints. OT differs from other approaches to phonological ...
, which uses
lattice graph
In graph theory, a lattice graph, mesh graph, or grid graph is a graph whose drawing, embedded in some Euclidean space , forms a regular tiling. This implies that the group of bijective transformations that send the graph to itself is a lat ...
s) and morphology (e.g. finite-state morphology, using
finite-state transducer
A finite-state transducer (FST) is a finite-state machine with two memory ''tapes'', following the terminology for Turing machines: an input tape and an output tape. This contrasts with an ordinary finite-state automaton, which has a single tape ...
s) are common in the analysis of language as a graph. Indeed, the usefulness of this area of mathematics to linguistics has borne organizations such a
TextGraphs as well as various 'Net' projects, such as
WordNet
WordNet is a lexical database of semantic relations between words in more than 200 languages. WordNet links words into semantic relations including synonyms, hyponyms, and meronyms. The synonyms are grouped into ''synsets'' with short definit ...
,
VerbNet
The VerbNet project maps PropBank verb types to their corresponding Levin classes. It is a lexical resource that incorporates both semantic and syntactic information about its contents.
VerbNet is part of thSemLinkproject in development at the Un ...
, and others.
Physics and chemistry
Graph theory is also used to study molecules in
chemistry and
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...
. In
condensed matter physics
Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases which arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms. More generally, the s ...
, the three-dimensional structure of complicated simulated atomic structures can be studied quantitatively by gathering statistics on graph-theoretic properties related to the topology of the atoms. Also, "the
Feynman graphs and rules of calculation summarize
quantum field theory
In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines classical field theory, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct physical models of subatomic particles a ...
in a form in close contact with the experimental numbers one wants to understand." In chemistry a graph makes a natural model for a molecule, where vertices represent
atom
Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons.
Every solid, liquid, gas ...
s and edges
bond
Bond or bonds may refer to:
Common meanings
* Bond (finance), a type of debt security
* Bail bond, a commercial third-party guarantor of surety bonds in the United States
* Chemical bond, the attraction of atoms, ions or molecules to form chemica ...
s. This approach is especially used in computer processing of molecular structures, ranging from
chemical editors to database searching. In
statistical physics
Statistical physics is a branch of physics that evolved from a foundation of statistical mechanics, which uses methods of probability theory and statistics, and particularly the mathematical tools for dealing with large populations and approxi ...
, graphs can represent local connections between interacting parts of a system, as well as the dynamics of a physical process on such
systems. Similarly, in
computational neuroscience
Computational neuroscience (also known as theoretical neuroscience or mathematical neuroscience) is a branch of neuroscience which employs mathematical models, computer simulations, theoretical analysis and abstractions of the brain to ...
graphs can be used to represent functional connections between brain areas that interact to give rise to various cognitive processes, where the vertices represent different areas of the brain and the edges represent the connections between those areas. Graph theory plays an important role in electrical modeling of electrical networks, here, weights are associated with resistance of the wire segments to obtain electrical properties of network structures. Graphs are also used to represent the micro-scale channels of
porous media
A porous medium or a porous material is a material containing pores (voids). The skeletal portion of the material is often called the "matrix" or "frame". The pores are typically filled with a fluid (liquid or gas). The skeletal material is usu ...
, in which the vertices represent the pores and the edges represent the smaller channels connecting the pores.
Chemical graph theory
Chemical graph theory is the topology branch of mathematical chemistry which applies graph theory to mathematical modelling of chemical phenomena.
The pioneers of chemical graph theory are Alexandru Balaban, Ante Graovac, Iván Gutman, Haruo H ...
uses the
molecular graph
In chemical graph theory and in mathematical chemistry, a molecular graph or chemical graph is a representation of the structural formula of a chemical compound in terms of graph theory. A chemical graph is a labeled graph whose vertices correspo ...
as a means to model molecules.
Graphs and networks are excellent models to study and understand phase transitions and critical phenomena.
Removal of nodes or edges leads to a critical transition where the network breaks into small clusters which is studied as a phase transition. This breakdown is studied via
percolation theory
In statistical physics and mathematics, percolation theory describes the behavior of a network when nodes or links are added. This is a geometric type of phase transition, since at a critical fraction of addition the network of small, disconnecte ...
.
Social sciences

Graph theory is also widely used in
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...
as a way, for example, to
measure actors' prestige or to explore
rumor spreading, notably through the use of
social network analysis
Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of ''nodes'' (individual actors, people, or things within the network) ...
software. Under the umbrella of social networks are many different types of graphs. Acquaintanceship and friendship graphs describe whether people know each other. Influence graphs model whether certain people can influence the behavior of others. Finally, collaboration graphs model whether two people work together in a particular way, such as acting in a movie together.
Biology
Likewise, graph theory is useful in
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditar ...
and conservation efforts where a vertex can represent regions where certain species exist (or inhabit) and the edges represent migration paths or movement between the regions. This information is important when looking at breeding patterns or tracking the spread of disease, parasites or how changes to the movement can affect other species.
Graphs are also commonly used in
molecular biology
Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and phys ...
and
genomics
Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...
to model and analyse datasets with complex relationships. For example, graph-based methods are often used to 'cluster' cells together into cell-types in
single-cell transcriptome analysis. Another use is to model genes or proteins in a
pathway
Pathway or pathways may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''The Pathway'' (novel), a 1914 work by Gertrude Page
*''The Pathway'', a 2001 album by Officium Triste
* ''Pathway'' (album), by the Flaming Stars
* ''Pathways'' (album) (2010), by the Dave Hol ...
and study the relationships between them, such as metabolic pathways and gene regulatory networks. Evolutionary trees, ecological networks, and hierarchical clustering of gene expression patterns are also represented as graph structures.
Graph theory is also used in
connectomics
Connectomics is the production and study of connectomes: comprehensive maps of connections within an organism's nervous system. More generally, it can be thought of as the study of neuronal wiring diagrams with a focus on how structural connectivi ...
; nervous systems can be seen as a graph, where the nodes are neurons and the edges are the connections between them.
Mathematics
In mathematics, graphs are useful in geometry and certain parts of topology such as
knot theory
In the mathematical field of topology, knot theory is the study of mathematical knots. While inspired by knots which appear in daily life, such as those in shoelaces and rope, a mathematical knot differs in that the ends are joined so it cannot ...
.
Algebraic graph theory
Algebraic graph theory is a branch of mathematics in which algebraic methods are applied to problems about graphs. This is in contrast to geometric, combinatoric, or algorithmic approaches. There are three main branches of algebraic graph th ...
has close links with
group theory
In abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as group (mathematics), groups.
The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as ring (mathematics), rings, field ...
. Algebraic graph theory has been applied to many areas including dynamic systems and complexity.
Other topics
A graph structure can be extended by assigning a weight to each edge of the graph. Graphs with weights, or
weighted graph
This is a glossary of graph theory. Graph theory is the study of graphs, systems of nodes or vertices connected in pairs by lines or edges
Edge or EDGE may refer to:
Technology Computing
* Edge computing, a network load-balancing system
* ...
s, are used to represent structures in which pairwise connections have some numerical values. For example, if a graph represents a road network, the weights could represent the length of each road. There may be several weights associated with each edge, including distance (as in the previous example), travel time, or monetary cost. Such weighted graphs are commonly used to program GPS's, and travel-planning search engines that compare flight times and costs.
History

The paper written by
Leonhard Euler
Leonhard Euler ( , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in ma ...
on the
Seven Bridges of Königsberg
The Seven Bridges of Königsberg is a historically notable problem in mathematics. Its negative resolution by Leonhard Euler in 1736 laid the foundations of graph theory and prefigured the idea of topology.
The city of Königsberg in Prussia (n ...
and published in 1736 is regarded as the first paper in the history of graph theory.
This paper, as well as the one written by
Vandermonde on the ''
knight problem,'' carried on with the ''analysis situs'' initiated by
Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mat ...
. Euler's formula relating the number of edges, vertices, and faces of a convex polyhedron was studied and generalized by
Cauchy
Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (, ; ; 21 August 178923 May 1857) was a French mathematician, engineer, and physicist who made pioneering contributions to several branches of mathematics, including mathematical analysis and continuum mechanics. He ...
and
L'Huilier,
and represents the beginning of the branch of mathematics known as
topology
In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing ho ...
.
More than one century after Euler's paper on the bridges of
Königsberg
Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was na ...
and while
Listing was introducing the concept of topology,
Cayley Cayley may refer to:
__NOTOC__ People
* Cayley (surname)
* Cayley Illingworth (1759–1823), Anglican Archdeacon of Stow
* Cayley Mercer (born 1994), Canadian women's ice hockey player
Places
* Cayley, Alberta, Canada, a hamlet
* Mount Cayley, a vo ...
was led by an interest in particular analytical forms arising from
differential calculus to study a particular class of graphs, the ''
tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...
s''. This study had many implications for theoretical
chemistry. The techniques he used mainly concern the
enumeration of graphs
In combinatorics, an area of mathematics, graph enumeration describes a class of combinatorial enumeration problems in which one must count undirected or directed graphs of certain types, typically as a function of the number of vertices of the ...
with particular properties. Enumerative graph theory then arose from the results of Cayley and the fundamental results published by
Pólya between 1935 and 1937. These were generalized by
De Bruijn De Bruijn is a Dutch surname meaning "the brown". Notable people with the surname include:
* (1887–1968), Dutch politician
* Brian de Bruijn (b. 1954), Dutch-Canadian ice hockey player
* Chantal de Bruijn (b. 1976), Dutch field hockey defender
* ...
in 1959. Cayley linked his results on trees with contemporary studies of chemical composition.
The fusion of ideas from mathematics with those from chemistry began what has become part of the standard terminology of graph theory.
In particular, the term "graph" was introduced by
Sylvester in a paper published in 1878 in ''
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans ar ...
'', where he draws an analogy between "quantic invariants" and "co-variants" of algebra and molecular diagrams:
:"
��Every invariant and co-variant thus becomes expressible by a ''graph'' precisely identical with a
Kekuléan diagram or chemicograph.
��I give a rule for the geometrical multiplication of graphs, ''i.e.'' for constructing a ''graph'' to the product of in- or co-variants whose separate graphs are given.
�� (italics as in the original).
The first textbook on graph theory was written by
Dénes Kőnig
Dénes Kőnig (September 21, 1884 – October 19, 1944) was a Hungarian mathematician of Jewish heritage who worked in and wrote the first textbook on the field of graph theory.
Biography
Kőnig was born in Budapest, the son of mathematician Gyu ...
, and published in 1936. Another book by
Frank Harary
Frank Harary (March 11, 1921 – January 4, 2005) was an American mathematician, who specialized in graph theory. He was widely recognized as one of the "fathers" of modern graph theory.
Harary was a master of clear exposition and, together with ...
, published in 1969, was "considered the world over to be the definitive textbook on the subject", and enabled mathematicians, chemists, electrical engineers and social scientists to talk to each other. Harary donated all of the royalties to fund the
Pólya Prize.
One of the most famous and stimulating problems in graph theory is the
four color problem
In mathematics, the four color theorem, or the four color map theorem, states that no more than four colors are required to color the regions of any map so that no two adjacent regions have the same color. ''Adjacent'' means that two regions sh ...
: "Is it true that any map drawn in the plane may have its regions colored with four colors, in such a way that any two regions having a common border have different colors?" This problem was first posed by
Francis Guthrie
Francis Guthrie (born 22 January 1831 in London; d. 19 October 1899 in Claremont, Cape Town) was a South African mathematician and botanist who first posed the Four Colour Problem in 1852. He studied mathematics under Augustus De Morgan, and ...
in 1852 and its first written record is in a letter of
De Morgan De Morgan or de Morgan is a surname, and may refer to:
*Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871), British mathematician and logician.
** De Morgan's laws (or De Morgan's theorem), a set of rules from propositional logic.
** The De Morgan Medal, a trienn ...
addressed to
Hamilton the same year. Many incorrect proofs have been proposed, including those by Cayley,
Kempe, and others. The study and the generalization of this problem by
Tait,
Heawood Heawood is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Jonathan Heawood, British journalist
* Percy John Heawood (1861–1955), British mathematician
** Heawood conjecture
**Heawood graph
** Heawood number
See also
*Heywood (surname) Hey ...
,
Ramsey and
Hadwiger
Hugo Hadwiger (23 December 1908 in Karlsruhe, Germany – 29 October 1981 in Bern, Switzerland) was a Swiss mathematician, known for his work in geometry, combinatorics, and cryptography.
Biography
Although born in Karlsruhe, Germany, Hadwi ...
led to the study of the colorings of the graphs embedded on surfaces with arbitrary
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...
. Tait's reformulation generated a new class of problems, the ''factorization problems'', particularly studied by
Petersen
Petersen is a common Danish patronymic surname, meaning ''"son of Peter"''. There are other spellings. Petersen may refer to:
People In arts and entertainment
* Adolf Dahm-Petersen, Norwegian voice specialist
* Anja Petersen, German operatic ...
and
Kőnig. The works of Ramsey on colorations and more specially the results obtained by
Turán in 1941 was at the origin of another branch of graph theory, ''
extremal graph theory
Extremal graph theory is a branch of combinatorics, itself an area of mathematics, that lies at the intersection of extremal combinatorics and graph theory. In essence, extremal graph theory studies how global properties of a graph influence loc ...
''.
The four color problem remained unsolved for more than a century. In 1969
Heinrich Heesch
Heinrich Heesch (June 25, 1906 – July 26, 1995) was a German mathematician. He was born in Kiel and died in Hanover.
In Göttingen he worked on Group theory. In 1933 Heesch witnessed the National Socialist purges of university staff. ...
published a method for solving the problem using computers. A computer-aided proof produced in 1976 by
Kenneth Appel
Kenneth Ira Appel (October 8, 1932 – April 19, 2013) was an American mathematician who in 1976, with colleague Wolfgang Haken at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, solved one of the most famous problems in mathematics, the fou ...
and
Wolfgang Haken
Wolfgang Haken (June 21, 1928 – October 2, 2022) was a German American mathematician who specialized in topology, in particular 3-manifolds.
Biography
Haken was born in Berlin, Germany. His father was Werner Haken, a physicist who had Max ...
makes fundamental use of the notion of "discharging" developed by Heesch.
The proof involved checking the properties of 1,936 configurations by computer, and was not fully accepted at the time due to its complexity. A simpler proof considering only 633 configurations was given twenty years later by
Robertson
Robertson may refer to:
People
* Robertson (surname) (includes a list of people with this name)
* Robertson (given name)
* Clan Robertson, a Scottish clan
* Robertson, stage name of Belgian magician Étienne-Gaspard Robert (1763–1837)
Places ...
,
Seymour
Seymour may refer to:
Places Australia
*Seymour, Victoria, a township
*Electoral district of Seymour, a former electoral district in Victoria
*Rural City of Seymour, a former local government area in Victoria
*Seymour, Tasmania, a locality
...
,
Sanders and
Thomas
Thomas may refer to:
People
* List of people with given name Thomas
* Thomas (name)
* Thomas (surname)
* Saint Thomas (disambiguation)
* Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church
* Thomas the ...
.
The autonomous development of topology from 1860 and 1930 fertilized graph theory back through the works of
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Ri ...
,
Kuratowski
Kazimierz Kuratowski (; 2 February 1896 – 18 June 1980) was a Polish mathematician and logician. He was one of the leading representatives of the Warsaw School of Mathematics.
Biography and studies
Kazimierz Kuratowski was born in Warsaw, (th ...
and
Whitney Whitney may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Whitney'' (2015 film), a Whitney Houston biopic starring Yaya DaCosta
* ''Whitney'' (2018 film), a documentary about Whitney Houston
* ''Whitney'' (TV series), an American sitcom that premiered i ...
. Another important factor of common development of graph theory and
topology
In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing ho ...
came from the use of the techniques of modern algebra. The first example of such a use comes from the work of the physicist
Gustav Kirchhoff
Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (; 12 March 1824 – 17 October 1887) was a German physicist who contributed to the fundamental understanding of electrical circuits, spectroscopy, and the emission of black-body radiation by heated objects.
He coin ...
, who published in 1845 his
Kirchhoff's circuit laws
Kirchhoff's circuit laws are two equalities that deal with the current and potential difference (commonly known as voltage) in the lumped element model of electrical circuits. They were first described in 1845 by German physicist Gustav Kirchho ...
for calculating the
voltage
Voltage, also known as electric pressure, electric tension, or (electric) potential difference, is the difference in electric potential between two points. In a static electric field, it corresponds to the work needed per unit of charge t ...
and
current
Currents, Current or The Current may refer to:
Science and technology
* Current (fluid), the flow of a liquid or a gas
** Air current, a flow of air
** Ocean current, a current in the ocean
*** Rip current, a kind of water current
** Current (stre ...
in
electric circuit
An electrical network is an interconnection of electrical components (e.g., batteries, resistors, inductors, capacitors, switches, transistors) or a model of such an interconnection, consisting of electrical elements (e.g., voltage sources, ...
s.
The introduction of probabilistic methods in graph theory, especially in the study of
Erdős
Erdős, Erdos, or Erdoes is a Hungarian surname.
People with the surname include:
* Ágnes Erdős (born 1950), Hungarian politician
* Brad Erdos (born 1990), Canadian football player
* Éva Erdős (born 1964), Hungarian handball player
* Józ ...
and
Rényi of the asymptotic probability of graph connectivity, gave rise to yet another branch, known as ''
random graph theory
In mathematics, random graph is the general term to refer to probability distributions over graphs. Random graphs may be described simply by a probability distribution, or by a random process which generates them. The theory of random graphs li ...
'', which has been a fruitful source of graph-theoretic results.
Representation
A graph is an abstraction of relationships that emerge in nature; hence, it cannot be coupled to a certain representation. The way it is represented depends on the degree of convenience such representation provides for a certain application. The most common representations are the visual, in which, usually, vertices are drawn and connected by edges, and the tabular, in which rows of a table provide information about the relationships between the vertices within the graph.
Visual: Graph drawing
Graphs are usually represented visually by drawing a point or circle for every vertex, and drawing a line between two vertices if they are connected by an edge. If the graph is directed, the direction is indicated by drawing an arrow. If the graph is weighted, the weight is added on the arrow.
A graph drawing should not be confused with the graph itself (the abstract, non-visual structure) as there are several ways to structure the graph drawing. All that matters is which vertices are connected to which others by how many edges and not the exact layout. In practice, it is often difficult to decide if two drawings represent the same graph. Depending on the problem domain some layouts may be better suited and easier to understand than others.
The pioneering work of
W. T. Tutte
William Thomas Tutte OC FRS FRSC (; 14 May 1917 – 2 May 2002) was an English and Canadian codebreaker and mathematician. During the Second World War, he made a brilliant and fundamental advance in cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher, a major ...
was very influential on the subject of graph drawing. Among other achievements, he introduced the use of linear algebraic methods to obtain graph drawings.
Graph drawing also can be said to encompass problems that deal with the
crossing number and its various generalizations. The crossing number of a graph is the minimum number of intersections between edges that a drawing of the graph in the plane must contain. For a
planar graph
In graph theory, a planar graph is a graph that can be embedded in the plane, i.e., it can be drawn on the plane in such a way that its edges intersect only at their endpoints. In other words, it can be drawn in such a way that no edges cro ...
, the crossing number is zero by definition. Drawings on surfaces other than the plane are also studied.
There are other techniques to visualize a graph away from vertices and edges, including
circle packings,
intersection graph
In graph theory, an intersection graph is a graph that represents the pattern of intersections of a family of sets. Any graph can be represented as an intersection graph, but some important special classes of graphs can be defined by the types of ...
, and other visualizations of the
adjacency matrix
In graph theory and computer science, an adjacency matrix is a square matrix used to represent a finite graph. The elements of the matrix indicate whether pairs of vertices are adjacent or not in the graph.
In the special case of a finite simple ...
.
Tabular: Graph data structures
The tabular representation lends itself well to computational applications. There are different ways to store graphs in a computer system. The
data structure
In computer science, a data structure is a data organization, management, and storage format that is usually chosen for Efficiency, efficient Data access, access to data. More precisely, a data structure is a collection of data values, the rel ...
used depends on both the graph structure and the
algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
used for manipulating the graph. Theoretically one can distinguish between list and matrix structures but in concrete applications the best structure is often a combination of both. List structures are often preferred for
sparse graph
In mathematics, a dense graph is a graph in which the number of edges is close to the maximal number of edges (where every pair of vertices is connected by one edge). The opposite, a graph with only a few edges, is a sparse graph. The distinctio ...
s as they have smaller memory requirements.
Matrix
Matrix most commonly refers to:
* ''The Matrix'' (franchise), an American media franchise
** '' The Matrix'', a 1999 science-fiction action film
** "The Matrix", a fictional setting, a virtual reality environment, within ''The Matrix'' (franchi ...
structures on the other hand provide faster access for some applications but can consume huge amounts of memory. Implementations of sparse matrix structures that are efficient on modern parallel computer architectures are an object of current investigation.
List structures include the
edge list
An edge list is a data structure used to represent a graph as a list of its edges. An (unweighted) edge is defined by its start and end vertex, so each edge may be represented by two numbers. The entire edge list may be represented as a two-colum ...
, an array of pairs of vertices, and the
adjacency list
In graph theory and computer science, an adjacency list is a collection of unordered lists used to represent a finite graph. Each unordered list within an adjacency list describes the set of neighbors of a particular vertex in the graph. This i ...
, which separately lists the neighbors of each vertex: Much like the edge list, each vertex has a list of which vertices it is adjacent to.
Matrix structures include the
incidence matrix
In mathematics, an incidence matrix is a logical matrix that shows the relationship between two classes of objects, usually called an incidence relation. If the first class is ''X'' and the second is ''Y'', the matrix has one row for each element ...
, a matrix of 0's and 1's whose rows represent vertices and whose columns represent edges, and the
adjacency matrix
In graph theory and computer science, an adjacency matrix is a square matrix used to represent a finite graph. The elements of the matrix indicate whether pairs of vertices are adjacent or not in the graph.
In the special case of a finite simple ...
, in which both the rows and columns are indexed by vertices. In both cases a 1 indicates two adjacent objects and a 0 indicates two non-adjacent objects. The
degree matrix In the mathematical field of algebraic graph theory, the degree matrix of an undirected graph is a diagonal matrix which contains information about the degree of each vertex—that is, the number of edges attached to each vertex.. It is used togethe ...
indicates the degree of vertices. The
Laplacian matrix
In the mathematical field of graph theory, the Laplacian matrix, also called the graph Laplacian, admittance matrix, Kirchhoff matrix or discrete Laplacian, is a matrix representation of a graph. Named after Pierre-Simon Laplace, the graph Lapl ...
is a modified form of the adjacency matrix that incorporates information about the
degrees
Degree may refer to:
As a unit of measurement
* Degree (angle), a unit of angle measurement
** Degree of geographical latitude
** Degree of geographical longitude
* Degree symbol (°), a notation used in science, engineering, and mathematics
...
of the vertices, and is useful in some calculations such as
Kirchhoff's theorem
In the mathematical field of graph theory, Kirchhoff's theorem or Kirchhoff's matrix tree theorem named after Gustav Kirchhoff is a theorem about the number of spanning trees in a graph, showing that this number can be computed in polynomial time f ...
on the number of
spanning tree
In the mathematical field of graph theory, a spanning tree ''T'' of an undirected graph ''G'' is a subgraph that is a tree which includes all of the vertices of ''G''. In general, a graph may have several spanning trees, but a graph that is no ...
s of a graph.
The
distance matrix
In mathematics, computer science and especially graph theory, a distance matrix is a square matrix
In mathematics, a square matrix is a matrix with the same number of rows and columns. An ''n''-by-''n'' matrix is known as a square matrix of orde ...
, like the adjacency matrix, has both its rows and columns indexed by vertices, but rather than containing a 0 or a 1 in each cell it contains the length of a
shortest path
In graph theory, the shortest path problem is the problem of finding a path between two vertices (or nodes) in a graph such that the sum of the weights of its constituent edges is minimized.
The problem of finding the shortest path between t ...
between two vertices.
Problems
Enumeration
There is a large literature on
graphical enumeration
In combinatorics, an area of mathematics, graph enumeration describes a class of combinatorial enumeration problems in which one must count undirected or directed graphs of certain types, typically as a function of the number of vertices of the ...
: the problem of counting graphs meeting specified conditions. Some of this work is found in Harary and Palmer (1973).
Subgraphs, induced subgraphs, and minors
A common problem, called the
subgraph isomorphism problem In theoretical computer science, the subgraph isomorphism problem is a computational task in which two graphs ''G'' and ''H'' are given as input, and one must determine whether ''G'' contains a subgraph that is isomorphic to ''H''.
Subgraph isomor ...
, is finding a fixed graph as a
subgraph in a given graph. One reason to be interested in such a question is that many
graph properties
In graph theory, a graph property or graph invariant is a property of graphs that depends only on the abstract structure, not on graph representations such as particular labellings or drawings of the graph..
Definitions
While graph drawing and ...
are ''hereditary'' for subgraphs, which means that a graph has the property if and only if all subgraphs have it too.
Unfortunately, finding maximal subgraphs of a certain kind is often an
NP-complete problem
In computational complexity theory, a problem is NP-complete when:
# it is a problem for which the correctness of each solution can be verified quickly (namely, in polynomial time) and a brute-force search algorithm can find a solution by tryin ...
. For example:
* Finding the largest complete subgraph is called the
clique problem
In computer science, the clique problem is the computational problem of finding cliques (subsets of vertices, all adjacent to each other, also called complete subgraphs) in a graph. It has several different formulations depending on which cliq ...
(NP-complete).
One special case of subgraph isomorphism is the
graph isomorphism problem
The graph isomorphism problem is the computational problem of determining whether two finite graphs are isomorphic.
The problem is not known to be solvable in polynomial time nor to be NP-complete, and therefore may be in the computational comp ...
. It asks whether two graphs are isomorphic. It is not known whether this problem is NP-complete, nor whether it can be solved in polynomial time.
A similar problem is finding
induced subgraph
In the mathematical field of graph theory, an induced subgraph of a graph is another graph, formed from a subset of the vertices of the graph and ''all'' of the edges (from the original graph) connecting pairs of vertices in that subset.
Definit ...
s in a given graph. Again, some important graph properties are hereditary with respect to induced subgraphs, which means that a graph has a property if and only if all induced subgraphs also have it. Finding maximal induced subgraphs of a certain kind is also often NP-complete. For example:
* Finding the largest edgeless induced subgraph or
independent set is called the
independent set problem
In graph theory, an independent set, stable set, coclique or anticlique is a set of vertices in a graph, no two of which are adjacent. That is, it is a set S of vertices such that for every two vertices in S, there is no edge connecting the ...
(NP-complete).
Still another such problem, the minor containment problem, is to find a fixed graph as a minor of a given graph. A
minor
Minor may refer to:
* Minor (law), a person under the age of certain legal activities.
** A person who has not reached the age of majority
* Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education
Music theory
*Minor chord
** Bar ...
or subcontraction of a graph is any graph obtained by taking a subgraph and contracting some (or no) edges. Many graph properties are hereditary for minors, which means that a graph has a property if and only if all minors have it too. For example,
Wagner's Theorem
In graph theory, Wagner's theorem is a mathematical forbidden graph characterization of planar graphs, named after Klaus Wagner, stating that a finite graph is planar if and only if its minors include neither ''K''5 (the complete graph on f ...
states:
* A graph is
planar
Planar is an adjective meaning "relating to a plane (geometry)".
Planar may also refer to:
Science and technology
* Planar (computer graphics), computer graphics pixel information from several bitplanes
* Planar (transmission line technologies), ...
if it contains as a minor neither the
complete bipartite graph
In the mathematical field of graph theory, a complete bipartite graph or biclique is a special kind of bipartite graph where every vertex of the first set is connected to every vertex of the second set..Electronic edition page 17.
Graph theory ...
''K''
3,3 (see the
Three-cottage problem) nor the complete graph ''K''
5.
A similar problem, the subdivision containment problem, is to find a fixed graph as a
subdivision
Subdivision may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Subdivision (metre), in music
* ''Subdivision'' (film), 2009
* "Subdivision", an episode of ''Prison Break'' (season 2)
* ''Subdivisions'' (EP), by Sinch, 2005
* "Subdivisions" (song), by Rush ...
of a given graph. A
subdivision
Subdivision may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Subdivision (metre), in music
* ''Subdivision'' (film), 2009
* "Subdivision", an episode of ''Prison Break'' (season 2)
* ''Subdivisions'' (EP), by Sinch, 2005
* "Subdivisions" (song), by Rush ...
or
homeomorphism
In the mathematical field of topology, a homeomorphism, topological isomorphism, or bicontinuous function is a bijective and continuous function between topological spaces that has a continuous inverse function. Homeomorphisms are the isomor ...
of a graph is any graph obtained by subdividing some (or no) edges. Subdivision containment is related to graph properties such as
planarity
Planarity is a puzzle computer game by John Tantalo, based on a concept by Mary Radcliffe at Western Michigan University.
The name comes from the concept of planar graphs in graph theory; these are graphs that can be embedded in the Euclidean plan ...
. For example,
Kuratowski's Theorem
In graph theory, Kuratowski's theorem is a mathematical forbidden graph characterization of planar graphs, named after Kazimierz Kuratowski. It states that a finite graph is planar if and only if it does not contain a subgraph that is a subdivi ...
states:
* A graph is
planar
Planar is an adjective meaning "relating to a plane (geometry)".
Planar may also refer to:
Science and technology
* Planar (computer graphics), computer graphics pixel information from several bitplanes
* Planar (transmission line technologies), ...
if it contains as a subdivision neither the
complete bipartite graph
In the mathematical field of graph theory, a complete bipartite graph or biclique is a special kind of bipartite graph where every vertex of the first set is connected to every vertex of the second set..Electronic edition page 17.
Graph theory ...
''K''
3,3 nor the
complete graph
In the mathematical field of graph theory, a complete graph is a simple undirected graph in which every pair of distinct vertices is connected by a unique edge. A complete digraph is a directed graph in which every pair of distinct vertices ...
''K''
5.
Another problem in subdivision containment is the
Kelmans–Seymour conjecture
In graph theory, the Kelmans–Seymour conjecture states that every 5-vertex-connected graph that is not planar contains a subdivision of the 5-vertex complete graph . It is named for Paul Seymour and Alexander Kelmans, who independently descri ...
:
* Every
5-vertex-connected graph that is not
planar
Planar is an adjective meaning "relating to a plane (geometry)".
Planar may also refer to:
Science and technology
* Planar (computer graphics), computer graphics pixel information from several bitplanes
* Planar (transmission line technologies), ...
contains a
subdivision
Subdivision may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Subdivision (metre), in music
* ''Subdivision'' (film), 2009
* "Subdivision", an episode of ''Prison Break'' (season 2)
* ''Subdivisions'' (EP), by Sinch, 2005
* "Subdivisions" (song), by Rush ...
of the 5-vertex
complete graph
In the mathematical field of graph theory, a complete graph is a simple undirected graph in which every pair of distinct vertices is connected by a unique edge. A complete digraph is a directed graph in which every pair of distinct vertices ...
''K''
5.
Another class of problems has to do with the extent to which various species and generalizations of graphs are determined by their ''point-deleted subgraphs''. For example:
* The
reconstruction conjecture
Informally, the reconstruction conjecture in graph theory says that graphs are determined uniquely by their subgraphs. It is due to KellyKelly, P. J.A congruence theorem for trees ''Pacific J. Math.'' 7 (1957), 961–968. and Ulam.Ulam, S. M. ...
Graph coloring
Many problems and theorems in graph theory have to do with various ways of coloring graphs. Typically, one is interested in coloring a graph so that no two adjacent vertices have the same color, or with other similar restrictions. One may also consider coloring edges (possibly so that no two coincident edges are the same color), or other variations. Among the famous results and conjectures concerning graph coloring are the following:
*
Four-color theorem
In mathematics, the four color theorem, or the four color map theorem, states that no more than four colors are required to color the regions of any map so that no two adjacent regions have the same color. ''Adjacent'' means that two regions sh ...
*
Strong perfect graph theorem
*
Erdős–Faber–Lovász conjecture
*
Total coloring conjecture, also called
Behzad Behzad ( fa, بهزاد, link=no) may refer to:
Places in Iran
*Bagh-e Behzad, a village in Javanmardi Rural District, Khanmirza District, Lordegan County, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province
*Behzad Kola, a village in Qareh Toghan Rural District, ...
's conjecture (unsolved)
*
List coloring conjecture (unsolved)
*
Hadwiger conjecture (graph theory)
In graph theory, the Hadwiger conjecture states that if G is loopless and has no K_t minor then its chromatic number satisfies It is known to be true for The conjecture is a generalization of the four-color theorem and is considered to be o ...
(unsolved)
Subsumption and unification
Constraint modeling theories concern families of directed graphs related by a
partial order
In mathematics, especially order theory, a partially ordered set (also poset) formalizes and generalizes the intuitive concept of an ordering, sequencing, or arrangement of the elements of a set. A poset consists of a set together with a binary ...
. In these applications, graphs are ordered by specificity, meaning that more constrained graphs—which are more specific and thus contain a greater amount of information—are subsumed by those that are more general. Operations between graphs include evaluating the direction of a subsumption relationship between two graphs, if any, and computing graph unification. The unification of two argument graphs is defined as the most general graph (or the computation thereof) that is consistent with (i.e. contains all of the information in) the inputs, if such a graph exists; efficient unification algorithms are known.
For constraint frameworks which are strictly
compositional
In semantics, mathematical logic and related disciplines, the principle of compositionality is the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them. ...
, graph unification is the sufficient satisfiability and combination function. Well-known applications include
automatic theorem proving
Automated theorem proving (also known as ATP or automated deduction) is a subfield of automated reasoning and mathematical logic dealing with proving mathematical theorems by computer programs. Automated reasoning over mathematical proof was a maj ...
and modeling the
elaboration of linguistic structure.
Route problems
*
Hamiltonian path problem
In the mathematical field of graph theory the Hamiltonian path problem and the Hamiltonian cycle problem are problems of determining whether a Hamiltonian path (a path in an undirected or directed graph that visits each vertex exactly once) or a ...
*
Minimum spanning tree
A minimum spanning tree (MST) or minimum weight spanning tree is a subset of the edges of a connected, edge-weighted undirected graph that connects all the vertices together, without any cycles and with the minimum possible total edge weight. T ...
*
Route inspection problem
In graph theory, a branch of mathematics and computer science, Guan's route problem, the Chinese postman problem, postman tour or route inspection problem is to find a shortest closed path or circuit that visits every edge of an (connected) undi ...
(also called the "Chinese postman problem")
*
Seven bridges of Königsberg
The Seven Bridges of Königsberg is a historically notable problem in mathematics. Its negative resolution by Leonhard Euler in 1736 laid the foundations of graph theory and prefigured the idea of topology.
The city of Königsberg in Prussia (n ...
*
Shortest path problem
In graph theory, the shortest path problem is the problem of finding a path between two vertices (or nodes) in a graph such that the sum of the weights of its constituent edges is minimized.
The problem of finding the shortest path between t ...
*
Steiner tree
In combinatorial mathematics, the Steiner tree problem, or minimum Steiner tree problem, named after Jakob Steiner, is an umbrella term for a class of problems in combinatorial optimization. While Steiner tree problems may be formulated in a ...
*
Three-cottage problem
*
Traveling salesman problem
The travelling salesman problem (also called the travelling salesperson problem or TSP) asks the following question: "Given a list of cities and the distances between each pair of cities, what is the shortest possible route that visits each cit ...
(NP-hard)
Network flow
There are numerous problems arising especially from applications that have to do with various notions of
flows in networks, for example:
*
Max flow min cut theorem
In computer science and optimization theory, the max-flow min-cut theorem states that in a flow network, the maximum amount of flow passing from the ''source'' to the ''sink'' is equal to the total weight of the edges in a minimum cut, i.e., the ...
Visibility problems
*
Museum guard problem
The art gallery problem or museum problem is a well-studied visibility problem in computational geometry. It originates from the following real-world problem:
In the geometric version of the problem, the layout of the art gallery is represent ...
Covering problems
Covering problem
In combinatorics and computer science, covering problems are computational problems that ask whether a certain combinatorial structure 'covers' another, or how large the structure has to be to do that. Covering problems are minimization problems a ...
s in graphs may refer to various
set cover problems on subsets of vertices/subgraphs.
*
Dominating set
In graph theory, a dominating set for a graph is a subset of its vertices, such that any vertex of is either in , or has a neighbor in . The domination number is the number of vertices in a smallest dominating set for .
The dominating set ...
problem is the special case of set cover problem where sets are the closed
neighborhoods
A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural ar ...
.
*
Vertex cover problem
In graph theory, a vertex cover (sometimes node cover) of a graph is a set of vertices that includes at least one endpoint of every edge of the graph.
In computer science, the problem of finding a minimum vertex cover is a classical optimizat ...
is the special case of set cover problem where sets to cover are every edges.
* The original set cover problem, also called hitting set, can be described as a vertex cover in a hypergraph.
Decomposition problems
Decomposition, defined as partitioning the edge set of a graph (with as many vertices as necessary accompanying the edges of each part of the partition), has a wide variety of questions. Often, the problem is to decompose a graph into subgraphs isomorphic to a fixed graph; for instance, decomposing a complete graph into Hamiltonian cycles. Other problems specify a family of graphs into which a given graph should be decomposed, for instance, a family of cycles, or decomposing a complete graph ''K''
''n'' into specified trees having, respectively, 1, 2, 3, ..., edges.
Some specific decomposition problems that have been studied include:
*
Arboricity
The arboricity of an undirected graph is the minimum number of forests into which its edges can be partitioned. Equivalently it is the minimum number of spanning forests needed to cover all the edges of the graph. The Nash-Williams theorem pro ...
, a decomposition into as few forests as possible
*
Cycle double cover
In graph-theoretic mathematics, a cycle double cover is a collection of cycles in an undirected graph that together include each edge of the graph exactly twice. For instance, for any polyhedral graph, the faces of a convex polyhedron that repre ...
, a decomposition into a collection of cycles covering each edge exactly twice
*
Edge coloring
In graph theory, an edge coloring of a graph is an assignment of "colors" to the edges of the graph so that no two incident edges have the same color. For example, the figure to the right shows an edge coloring of a graph by the colors red, blue ...
, a decomposition into as few
matchings as possible
*
Graph factorization
In graph theory, a factor of a graph ''G'' is a spanning subgraph, i.e., a subgraph that has the same vertex set as ''G''. A ''k''-factor of a graph is a spanning ''k''-regular subgraph, and a ''k''-factorization partitions the edges of the grap ...
, a decomposition of a
regular graph
In graph theory, a regular graph is a graph where each vertex has the same number of neighbors; i.e. every vertex has the same degree or valency. A regular directed graph must also satisfy the stronger condition that the indegree and outdegre ...
into regular subgraphs of given degrees
Graph classes
Many problems involve characterizing the members of various classes of graphs. Some examples of such questions are below:
*
Enumerating the members of a class
* Characterizing a class in terms of
forbidden substructures
* Ascertaining relationships among classes (e.g. does one property of graphs imply another)
* Finding efficient
algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
s to
decide membership in a class
* Finding
representation
Representation may refer to:
Law and politics
*Representation (politics), political activities undertaken by elected representatives, as well as other theories
** Representative democracy, type of democracy in which elected officials represent a ...
s for members of a class
See also
*
Gallery of named graphs
Some of the finite structures considered in graph theory have names, sometimes inspired by the graph's topology, and sometimes after their discoverer. A famous example is the Petersen graph, a concrete graph on 10 vertices that appears as a minim ...
*
Glossary of graph theory
*
List of graph theory topics
This is a list of graph theory topics, by Wikipedia page.
See glossary of graph theory terms for basic terminology
Examples and types of graphs
Graph coloring
Paths and cycles
Trees
Terminology
*Node
** Child node
**Parent node
** Le ...
*
List of unsolved problems in graph theory
*
Publications in graph theory
Related topics
*
Algebraic graph theory
Algebraic graph theory is a branch of mathematics in which algebraic methods are applied to problems about graphs. This is in contrast to geometric, combinatoric, or algorithmic approaches. There are three main branches of algebraic graph th ...
*
Citation graph
A citation graph (or citation network), in information science and bibliometrics, is a directed graph that describes the citations within a collection of documents.
Each vertex (or node) in the graph represents a document in the collection, an ...
*
Conceptual graph
A conceptual graph (CG) is a formalism for knowledge representation. In the first published paper on CGs, John F. Sowa used them to represent the conceptual schemas used in database systems. The first book on CGs applied them to a wide range o ...
*
Data structure
In computer science, a data structure is a data organization, management, and storage format that is usually chosen for Efficiency, efficient Data access, access to data. More precisely, a data structure is a collection of data values, the rel ...
*
Disjoint-set data structure
In computer science, a disjoint-set data structure, also called a union–find data structure or merge–find set, is a data structure that stores a collection of Disjoint sets, disjoint (non-overlapping) Set (mathematics), sets. Equivalently ...
*
Dual-phase evolution
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Entitative graph
An entitative graph is an element of the diagrammatic syntax for logic that Charles Sanders Peirce developed under the name of qualitative logic beginning in the 1880s, taking the coverage of the formalism only as far as the propositional or ...
*
Existential graph
An existential graph is a type of diagrammatic or visual notation for logical expressions, proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce, who wrote on graphical logic as early as 1882,Peirce, C. S., "n Junctures and Fractures in Logic (editors' title for M ...
*
Graph algebra
In mathematics, especially in the fields of universal algebra and graph theory, a graph algebra is a way of giving a directed graph an algebraic structure. It was introduced by McNulty and Shallon, and has seen many uses in the field of univers ...
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Graph automorphism
In the mathematical field of graph theory, an automorphism of a graph is a form of symmetry in which the graph is mapped onto itself while preserving the edge–vertex connectivity.
Formally, an automorphism of a graph is a permutation of the ...
*
Graph coloring
In graph theory, graph coloring is a special case of graph labeling; it is an assignment of labels traditionally called "colors" to elements of a graph subject to certain constraints. In its simplest form, it is a way of coloring the vertices ...
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Graph database
A graph database (GDB) is a database that uses graph structures for semantic queries with nodes, edges, and properties to represent and store data. A key concept of the system is the ''graph'' (or ''edge'' or ''relationship''). The graph relat ...
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Graph data structure
In computer science, a graph is an abstract data type that is meant to implement the undirected graph and directed graph concepts from the field of graph theory within mathematics.
A graph data structure consists of a finite (and possibly mutab ...
*
Graph drawing
Graph drawing is an area of mathematics and computer science combining methods from geometric graph theory and information visualization to derive two-dimensional depictions of graphs arising from applications such as social network analysis, car ...
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Graph equation In graph theory, Graph equations are equations in which the unknowns are graphs. One of the central questions of graph theory concerns the notion of isomorphism. We ask: When are two graphs the same? (i.e., graph isomorphism) The graphs in question ...
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Graph rewriting
In computer science, graph transformation, or graph rewriting, concerns the technique of creating a new graph out of an original graph algorithmically. It has numerous applications, ranging from software engineering ( software construction and also ...
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Graph sandwich problem In graph theory and computer science, the graph sandwich problem is a problem of finding a graph that belongs to a particular family of graphs and is "sandwiched" between two other graphs, one of which must be a subgraph and the other of which must ...
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Graph property
In graph theory, a graph property or graph invariant is a property of graphs that depends only on the abstract structure, not on graph representations such as particular labellings or drawings of the graph..
Definitions
While graph drawing and ...
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Intersection graph
In graph theory, an intersection graph is a graph that represents the pattern of intersections of a family of sets. Any graph can be represented as an intersection graph, but some important special classes of graphs can be defined by the types of ...
*
Knight's Tour
A knight's tour is a sequence of moves of a knight on a chessboard such that the knight visits every square exactly once. If the knight ends on a square that is one knight's move from the beginning square (so that it could tour the board again im ...
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Logical graph A logical graph is a special type of diagrammatic structure in any one of several systems of graphical syntax that Charles Sanders Peirce developed for logic.
In his papers on '' qualitative logic'', ''entitative graphs'', and ''existential graphs ...
*
Loop
Loop or LOOP may refer to:
Brands and enterprises
* Loop (mobile), a Bulgarian virtual network operator and co-founder of Loop Live
* Loop, clothing, a company founded by Carlos Vasquez in the 1990s and worn by Digable Planets
* Loop Mobile, ...
*
Network theory
Network theory is the study of graphs as a representation of either symmetric relations or asymmetric relations between discrete objects. In computer science and network science, network theory is a part of graph theory: a network can be de ...
*
Null graph
In the mathematical field of graph theory, the term "null graph" may refer either to the order-zero graph, or alternatively, to any edgeless graph (the latter is sometimes called an "empty graph").
Order-zero graph
The order-zero graph, , is the ...
*
Pebble motion problems
*
Percolation theory
In statistical physics and mathematics, percolation theory describes the behavior of a network when nodes or links are added. This is a geometric type of phase transition, since at a critical fraction of addition the network of small, disconnecte ...
*
Perfect graph
In graph theory, a perfect graph is a graph in which the chromatic number of every induced subgraph equals the order of the largest clique of that subgraph ( clique number). Equivalently stated in symbolic terms an arbitrary graph G=(V,E) is per ...
*
Quantum graph
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Random regular graph A random ''r''-regular graph is a graph selected from \mathcal_, which denotes the probability space of all ''r''-regular graphs on n vertices, where 3 \le r 0 is a positive constant, and d is the least integer satisfying
(r-1)^ \ge (2 + \epsilon ...
s
*
Semantic networks
A semantic network, or frame network is a knowledge base that represents semantic relations between concepts in a network. This is often used as a form of knowledge representation. It is a directed or undirected graph consisting of vertices, ...
*
Spectral graph theory
In mathematics, spectral graph theory is the study of the properties of a graph in relationship to the characteristic polynomial, eigenvalues, and eigenvectors of matrices associated with the graph, such as its adjacency matrix or Laplacian mat ...
*
Strongly regular graph
In graph theory, a strongly regular graph (SRG) is defined as follows. Let be a regular graph with vertices and degree . is said to be strongly regular if there are also integers and such that:
* Every two adjacent vertices have comm ...
s
*
Symmetric graph
In the mathematical field of graph theory, a graph is symmetric (or arc-transitive) if, given any two pairs of adjacent vertices and of , there is an automorphism
:f : V(G) \rightarrow V(G)
such that
:f(u_1) = u_2 and f(v_1) = v_2.
In ot ...
s
*
Transitive reduction
In the mathematical field of graph theory, a transitive reduction of a directed graph is another directed graph with the same vertices and as few edges as possible, such that for all pairs of vertices , a (directed) path from to in exists i ...
*
Tree data structure
In computer science, a tree is a widely used abstract data type that represents a hierarchical tree structure with a set of connected nodes. Each node in the tree can be connected to many children (depending on the type of tree), but must be con ...
Algorithms
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Bellman–Ford algorithm
The Bellman–Ford algorithm is an algorithm that computes shortest paths from a single source vertex to all of the other vertices in a weighted digraph.
It is slower than Dijkstra's algorithm for the same problem, but more versatile, as it i ...
*
Borůvka's algorithm
Borůvka's algorithm is a greedy algorithm for finding a minimum spanning tree in a graph,
or a minimum spanning forest in the case of a graph that is not connected.
It was first published in 1926 by Otakar Borůvka as a method of constructing a ...
*
Breadth-first search
Breadth-first search (BFS) is an algorithm for searching a tree data structure for a node that satisfies a given property. It starts at the tree root and explores all nodes at the present depth prior to moving on to the nodes at the next d ...
*
Depth-first search
Depth-first search (DFS) is an algorithm for traversing or searching tree or graph data structures. The algorithm starts at the root node (selecting some arbitrary node as the root node in the case of a graph) and explores as far as possible alo ...
*
Dijkstra's algorithm
Dijkstra's algorithm ( ) is an algorithm for finding the shortest paths between nodes in a graph, which may represent, for example, road networks. It was conceived by computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra in 1956 and published three years ...
*
Edmonds–Karp algorithm
In computer science, the Edmonds–Karp algorithm is an implementation of the Ford–Fulkerson method for computing the maximum flow in a flow network in O(, V, , E, ^2) time. The algorithm was first published by Yefim Dinitz (whose name is als ...
*
Floyd–Warshall algorithm
In computer science, the Floyd–Warshall algorithm (also known as Floyd's algorithm, the Roy–Warshall algorithm, the Roy–Floyd algorithm, or the WFI algorithm) is an algorithm for finding shortest paths in a directed weighted graph with p ...
*
Ford–Fulkerson algorithm
*
Hopcroft–Karp algorithm
In computer science, the Hopcroft–Karp algorithm (sometimes more accurately called the Hopcroft–Karp–Karzanov algorithm) is an algorithm that takes a bipartite graph as input and produces a maximum cardinality matching as output – a set of ...
*
Hungarian algorithm
The Hungarian method is a combinatorial optimization algorithm that solves the assignment problem in polynomial time and which anticipated later primal–dual methods. It was developed and published in 1955 by Harold Kuhn, who gave the name "Hu ...
*
Kosaraju's algorithm
In computer science, Kosaraju-Sharir's algorithm (also known as Kosaraju's algorithm) is a linear time algorithm to find the strongly connected components of a directed graph. Aho, Hopcroft and Ullman credit it to S. Rao Kosaraju and Micha Sh ...
*
Kruskal's algorithm
Kruskal's algorithm finds a minimum spanning forest of an undirected edge-weighted graph. If the graph is connected, it finds a minimum spanning tree. (A minimum spanning tree of a connected graph is a subset of the edges that forms a tree that ...
*
Nearest neighbour algorithm
The nearest neighbour algorithm was one of the first algorithms used to solve the travelling salesman problem approximately. In that problem, the salesman starts at a random city and repeatedly visits the nearest city until all have been visited. ...
*
Network simplex algorithm In mathematical optimization, the network simplex algorithm is a graph theoretic specialization of the simplex algorithm. The algorithm is usually formulated in terms of a minimum-cost flow problem. The network simplex method works very well in pra ...
*
Planarity testing algorithms
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Prim's algorithm
In computer science, Prim's algorithm (also known as Jarník's algorithm) is a greedy algorithm that finds a minimum spanning tree for a weighted undirected graph. This means it finds a subset of the edges that forms a tree that includes every ...
*
Push–relabel maximum flow algorithm In mathematical optimization, the push–relabel algorithm (alternatively, preflow–push algorithm) is an algorithm for computing maximum flows in a flow network. The name "push–relabel" comes from the two basic operations used in the algorithm. ...
*
Tarjan's strongly connected components algorithm
Tarjan's strongly connected components algorithm is an algorithm in graph theory for finding the strongly connected components (SCCs) of a directed graph. It runs in linear time, matching the time bound for alternative methods including Kosaraju's ...
*
Topological sorting
In computer science, a topological sort or topological ordering of a directed graph is a linear ordering of its vertices such that for every directed edge ''uv'' from vertex ''u'' to vertex ''v'', ''u'' comes before ''v'' in the ordering. For in ...
Subareas
*
Algebraic graph theory
Algebraic graph theory is a branch of mathematics in which algebraic methods are applied to problems about graphs. This is in contrast to geometric, combinatoric, or algorithmic approaches. There are three main branches of algebraic graph th ...
*
Geometric graph theory
Geometric graph theory in the broader sense is a large and amorphous subfield of graph theory, concerned with graphs defined by geometric means. In a stricter sense, geometric graph theory studies combinatorial and geometric properties of geome ...
* Extremal graph theory
* Random graph, Probabilistic graph theory
* Topological graph theory
Related areas of mathematics
* Combinatorics
* Group theory
* Knot theory
* Ramsey theory
Generalizations
* Hypergraph
* Abstract simplicial complex
Prominent graph theorists
* Noga Alon, Alon, Noga
* Claude Berge, Berge, Claude
* Béla Bollobás, Bollobás, Béla
* John Adrian Bondy, Bondy, Adrian John
* Graham Brightwell, Brightwell, Graham
* Maria Chudnovsky, Chudnovsky, Maria
* Fan Chung, Chung, Fan
* Gabriel Andrew Dirac, Dirac, Gabriel Andrew
* Edsger W. Dijkstra, Dijkstra, Edsger W.
* Paul Erdős, Erdős, Paul
* Leonhard Euler, Euler, Leonhard
* Ralph Faudree, Faudree, Ralph
* Herbert Fleischner, Fleischner, Herbert
* Martin Charles Golumbic, Golumbic, Martin
* Ronald Graham, Graham, Ronald
* Frank Harary, Harary, Frank
* Percy John Heawood, Heawood, Percy John
* Anton Kotzig, Kotzig, Anton
* Dénes Kőnig, Kőnig, Dénes
* László Lovász, Lovász, László
* U. S. R. Murty, Murty, U. S. R.
* Jaroslav Nešetřil, Nešetřil, Jaroslav
* Alfréd Rényi, Rényi, Alfréd
* Gerhard Ringel, Ringel, Gerhard
* Neil Robertson (mathematician), Robertson, Neil
* Paul Seymour (mathematician), Seymour, Paul
* Benny Sudakov, Sudakov, Benny
* Endre Szemerédi, Szemerédi, Endre
* Robin Thomas (mathematician), Thomas, Robin
* Carsten Thomassen, Thomassen, Carsten
* Pál Turán, Turán, Pál
* W. T. Tutte, Tutte, W. T.
* Hassler Whitney, Whitney, Hassler
Notes
References
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* English edition, Wiley 1961; Methuen & Co, New York 1962; Russian, Moscow 1961; Spanish, Mexico 1962; Roumanian, Bucharest 1969; Chinese, Shanghai 1963; Second printing of the 1962 first English edition, Dover, New York 2001.
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External links
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Graph theory tutorial
A searchable database of small connected graphs*
* [http://www.kde.org/applications/education/rocs/ rocs] — a graph theory IDE
The Social Life of Routers— non-technical paper discussing graphs of people and computers
Graph Theory Software— tools to teach and learn graph theory
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with references and links to graph library implementations
Online textbooks
Phase Transitions in Combinatorial Optimization Problems, Section 3: Introduction to Graphs(2006) by Hartmann and Weigt
Digraphs: Theory Algorithms and Applications2007 by Jorgen Bang-Jensen and Gregory Gutin
{{DEFAULTSORT:Graph Theory
Graph theory,