1. 2003 ICTM Contest Division A Orals Topic: Graph Theory
Micah Fogel
Illinois Math and Science Academy

2. The Source Graphs And Their Uses By Oystein Ore (Rev. Robin J. Wilson)
Math. Assoc. of America
1990
Anneli Lax New Mathematical Library
Vol. 34

3. Topics Graph Theory Theory What is a graph? Special properties
Counting arguments
Trees and cycles
Special routes
Planar graphs

4. Topics (continued) Applications State Level Possibilities Tournaments
Networks
State Level Possibilities
Duals and geometric figures
Directed graphs
Matchings
Map coloring

5. Additional Resources Mailing list: fogel@imsa.edu
Webstie:
ICTM Website:
Additional reading:
Bibliography
Discrete Math texts

6. Study Hints Do all exercises in text—many have solutions in back
Keep an eye on the websites—especially for state topic list!
Big area—don’t try to cover too much all at once
Go section-by-section

7. So what’s it all about…?

8. Here’s a graph!

9. Isomorphism
Two graphs are isomorphic if you can pair the vertices of one with the vertices of the other so that the connections of a vertex are the same as for its paired vertex

10. Isomorphism
To tell two graphs are not isomorphic, identify something different about them
Different numbers of edges emanating from vertices
Different lengths of walks you can take on them
Anything that can be done to one that can’t be done to the other

11. Isomorphism
To show graphs are isomorphic, you actually have to show the pairing
(Example: the top two graphs are isomorphic, with pairing S  Z and any matching of P, Q, R with W, X, Y. The bottom graph is not isomorphic to the other two.) S Y P Z Q R W X

12. Some Special Kinds of Graphs
Complete graph has all possible edges
Null graph has no edges
Planar graph can be drawn on a plane with no crossing edges
Interval graphs have vertices that are intervals of real numbers, edge between two intervals if they overlap

13. Counting Edges
The degree of a vertex is the number of edges attached to it
We can find the total number of edges in a graph by adding all the degrees and dividing by two (as each edge ends on two vertices)
This is often easier than counting all the edges separately
Graphs where each vertex has the same degree are called regular

14. Interval Graphs
(3,4)
(1,6)
Cannot be an interval graph
(5,7)
(0,2)

15. Routes in a Graph
We can move from vertex to vertex along edges of a graph
If our route never reuses the same edge, it is called a trail
If it never revisits the same vertex (except it may end where it started) it is called a path
If the end and beginning are in the same place, it is a cyclic trail, while a cyclic path is called a cycle

16. Connectivity
All vertices that can be reached from a given starting point by travelling along some path are said to be connected to the starting vertex
Being connected is an equivalence relation
Equivalence classes are called components

17. Eulerian Graphs
Can we find a trail running over each edge in the graph exactly once?
This problem is the place where graph theory was born, in the famous Bridges of Königsberg
It is easy to prove that if the number of vertices with odd degree is 2k, then we can find k trails that cover all the degrees
In particular, if there are 0 or 2 odd vertices, there is a single Eulerian circuit

18. Eulerian Trails

19. Hamiltonian Cycles
A similar question is: can we find a cycle that touches all vertices of a graph?
The Travelling Salesman Problem asks for such a route, often also asking for the shortest such route if distances between vertices are given
As opposed to the Eulerian circuit problem, this problem is considered “hard” to solve

20. Trees A tree is a connected graph with no cycle
A forest is a graph each of whose components is a tree
A forest with n vertices and k trees must therefore have n - k edges

21. Connector problem
One example of trees is to find a minimum cost network to connect various nodes of the network
We can do this with the greedy algorithm—always take the cheapest edge to connect the next city
We can use this to approximate a solution to the Travelling Salesman Problem

22. Matching Problems
A bipartite graph is a graph in which the vertices fall into two groups. No edge connects any two vertices in the same group

23. Matching Problems
One common problem with bipartite graphs is to pair the vertices in the two subsets as efficiently as possible
The Marriage Problem has a set of boys and a set of girls, and each person has a list of members of the opposite sex with whom they would be compatible. Is it possible to marry them off so that everyone is married to someone compatible?

24. Matching Problems
Such a matching is possible if and only if the graph satisfies the diversity condition, that each subset of k boys is collectively compatible with at least k girls

25. Directed Graphs
Often it is useful for the edges in a graph to have directionality associated with them
One way streets in a city road network
Who beat whom in a tournament graph
Such graphs are called directed graphs or digraphs
Graphs that allow both directed and undirected edges are called mixed graphs

26. Degrees of Vertices
Now that edges are directed, vertices have two different kinds of degrees
In-degree is number of edges coming in to a vertex, out-degree is the number of edges directed out of a vertex
Now we have that the number of edges is the sum of the in-degrees, and also equals the sum of the out-degrees
“Regular” changes its meaning so that all vertices must have the same in- and out-degrees

27. Applications of Digraphs
The cycle structure of digraphs reveals whether they can be the graphs of family trees
There is an efficient algorithm to find shortest routes (also known as minimal cost paths) in a network

28. Applications of Digraphs
Many puzzles can be solved by brute force application of finding paths in digraphs
Puzzles such as pouring problems are amenable to this technique
Games with complete information can be solved by finding paths from the opening position to a winning position

29. Applications of Digraphs
Sportswriter’s Paradox
In a complete directed graph, there is always a path through every vertex
If there is no “outclassed set” we can always find a Hamiltonian cycle in a complete digraph

30. Graphs and Relations Digraphs can be used to represent relations
We direct an edge from a to b whenever a is related to b by our relation
The example below is the divisibility relation on the numbers 1–7 (all directions point right). Primes are vertices with in-degree one)

31. Planar Graphs
Many situations require that the graph that represents them must lie on a plane.
Printed circuit board networks
Streets where it is impractical to build overpasses
Is there a way to tell when a graph is planar?

32. Kuratowski’s Theorem Yes!
An expansion of a graph is adding extra vertices in the middle of an edge. A contraction is deleting same
A graph is planar if and only if no subgraph can be reduced to K5 or K3,3, the complete graph on five vertices or the complete bipartite graph on two sets of three vertices

33. Kuratowski’s Theorem

34. Euler’s Formula
For any connected graph that lies in a plane, define a face to be a region of the plane “cordoned off” by edges of the graph
Euler’s formula says that for any connected planar graph, f + v - e = 2
Simply proved by induction on number of edges

35. Example: Water, Gas, Electicity
For an example, we prove that the water, gas, and electricity puzzle has no planar solution 1 2 3 W G E

36. Example: Water, Gas, Electricity
If it did, there would be six vertices and nine edges, thus five faces. But each face has four sides, requiring at least ten edges! 1 2 3 W G E

37. Example: Water, Gas, Electricity
Note that the graph for the WGE problem would have to be a complete bipartite graph on two sets of three vertices, so can’t be planar by Kuratowski’s Theorem
In fact, that’s how the “only if” part of Kuratowski’s theorem is proved!

38. Dual Graphs
Given a planar graph G, we can make a new graph G* by putting a vertex of G* in each face of G, and connecting two vertices of G* if and only if the corresponding faces of G share an edge
Text contains a nice proof that there can only be five perfect solids based on duals and an application of Euler’s formula

39. Coloring Problems
Graphs give rise to a number of coloring problems, where we try to color the vertices, edges, or faces according to certain rules
Most common are problems about coloring the faces of a graph (or, equivalently, the vertices of its dual)

40. Four Color Theorem
A theorem, proved only in 1976, states that the faces of any planar graph can be colored so that no two neighboring faces have the same color using only four colors
Text contains a straightforward proof that no more than five colors are needed
No simple proof is known for four; the current best proof has several hundred special cases that need to be checked!