Book Description

The rapidly expanding area of algebraic graph theory uses two different branches of algebra to explore various aspects of graph theory: linear algebra (for spectral theory) and group theory (for studying graph symmetry). These areas have links with other areas of mathematics, such as logic and harmonic analysis, and are increasingly being used in such areas as computer networks where symmetry is an important feature. Other books cover portions of this material, but this book is unusual in covering both of these aspects and there are no other books with such a wide scope. Peter J. Cameron, internationally recognized for his substantial contributions to the area, served as academic consultant for this volume, and the result is ten expository chapters written by acknowledged international experts in the field. Their well-written contributions have been carefully edited to enhance readability and to standardize the chapter structure, terminology and notation throughout the book. To help the reader, there is an extensive introductory chapter that covers the basic background material in graph theory, linear algebra and group theory. Each chapter concludes with an extensive list of references. ... Read more

Book Description

Good graphs make complex problems clear. From the weather forecast to the Dow Jones average, graphs are so ubiquitous today that it is hard to imagine a world without them. Yet they are a modern invention. This book is the first to comprehensively plot humankind's fascinating efforts to visualize data, from a key seventeenth-century precursor--England's plague-driven initiative to register vital statistics--right up to the latest advances. In a highly readable, richly illustrated story of invention and inventor that mixes science and politics, intrigue and scandal, revolution and shopping, Howard Wainer validates Thoreau's observation that circumstantial evidence can be quite convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk.

The story really begins with the eighteenth-century origins of the art, logic, and methods of data display, which emerged, full-grown, in William Playfair's landmark 1786 trade atlas of England and Wales. The remarkable Scot singlehandedly popularized the atheoretical plotting of data to reveal suggestive patterns--an achievement that foretold the graphic explosion of the nineteenth century, with atlases published across the observational sciences as the language of science moved from words to pictures.

... Read more

Book Description

The Handbook of Graph Theory is the most comprehensive single-source guide to graph theory ever published. Best-selling authors Jonathan Gross and Jay Yellen assembled an outstanding team of experts to contribute overviews of more than 50 of the most significant topics in graph theory-including those related to algorithmic and optimization approaches as well as "pure" graph theory. They then carefully edited the compilation to produce a unified, authoritative work ideal for ready reference.Designed and edited with non-experts in mind, the Handbook of Graph Theory makes information easy to find and easy to understand. The treatment of each topic includes lists of essential definitions and facts accompanied by examples, tables, remarks, and in some areas, conjectures and open problems. Each section contains a glossary of terms relevant to that topic and an extensive bibliography of references that collectively form an extensive guide to the primary research literature.The applications of graph theory are fast becoming ubiquitous. Whether your primary area of interest lies in mathematics, computer science, engineering, or operations research, this handbook holds the key to unlocking graph theory's intricacies, applications, and potential. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Nothing more than a handbook
As the title indicates, this is not a textbook, but a handbook. The interest of this one is to have pointers to the literature and to cover as much as possible of graph theory, so don't expect to find much details about something particular. I don't think it's useful for anything else than having a "close to hand" access to most of graph theory, hence only three stars for this limited interest compared to the relatively high price. ... Read more

Book Description

The time has now come when graph theory should be part of the education of every serious student of mathematics and computer science, both for its own sake and to enhance the appreciation of mathematics as a whole. This book is an in-depth account of graph theory, written with such a student in mind; it reflects the current state of the subject and emphasizes connections with other branches of pure mathematics. The volume grew out of the author's earlier book, Graph Theory -- An Introductory Course, but its length is well over twice that of its predecessor, allowing it to reveal many exciting new developments in the subject. Recognizing that graph theory is one of several courses competing for the attention of a student, the book contains extensive descriptive passages designed to convey the flavor of the subject and to arouse interest.

In addition to a modern treatment of the classical areas of graph theory such as coloring, matching, extremal theory, and algebraic graph theory, the book presents a detailed account of newer topics, including Szemer\'edi's Regularity Lemma and its use, Shelah's extension of the Hales-Jewett Theorem, the precise nature of the phase transition in a random graph process, the connection between electrical networks and random walks on graphs, and the Tutte polynomial and its cousins in knot theory.

In no other branch of mathematics is it as vital to tackle and solve challenging exercises in order to master the subject. To this end, the book contains an unusually large number of well thought-out exercises: over 600 in total. Although some are straightforward, most of them are substantial, and others will stretch even the most able reader. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Excellent in content, but somewhat challenging in narrative
Bela Bollobas has the rare gift of having both deep mathematical insights, and the ability to eloquently communicate them in a way that is accessible to the average graduate student. In his book "Modern Graph Theory", Bollobas covers just about every exciting area of the subject, and does so in an up-to-date fashion that gives the reader a big picture of each sub-area of the field. The ability to do this not only seems difficult, but also essential, since he himself has written entire books on two of the chapters (extremal graph theory, and random graphs). Just about every major important theorem (including max-flow/min-cut Theorem, and theorems by Menger, Szemeredi, Kuratowski, Erdos/Stone, and Tutte) can be found here, and thus makes this book indispensable for anyone who does research in graph theory, combinatorics, and/or complexity theory. In my opinion the true highlights of this book are indeed those areas he knows best: extremal graph theory, random graphs, and random walks on graphs, the latter of which may be the best introduction to that subject that one will find in a textbook.

My only complaint, at the cost of perhaps half a star, is that his discussions and proofs often seem difficult to follow, as he will state something that to him seems quite obvious, yet to this reader often seemed a bit subtle, and would hence slow down the reading. Indeed, if these off-handed remarks were included as exercises at the end of each chapter, then the number of excercises would have swelled from the current 600 to well over one thousand ! Speaking of which, these 600+ exercises, although also representing another blessing of this book in that they add another degree of depth, tend to lack "starter" exercises, and go straight to the theory. But this is to be expected from a graduate text.

Finally, for the reader whose research significantly intersects with graph theory, but may not be ready or willing to be initiated by Bollabas into the world of graph theory, I would recommend Dietsel's graduate text on the subject. His book covers similar topics, but may be more clearly and transparently, but with less depth and insight.

A good introduction book
My profile is the following: I am a phD student in theoretical computer science and I needed a good introduction book to graph theory.

This book is just what I needed... ... Read more

Book Description

This book is a concise--yet most carefully written--introduction tomodern graph theory, covering all its major recent developments. It canbe used both as a reliable textbook for an introductory course and asa graduate text: on each topic it covers all the basic material infull detail, and adds one or two deeper results (again withdetailed proofs) to illustrate the more advanced methods of that field. This second edition extends the first in two ways. It offers athoroughly revised and updated chapter on graph minors, which nowincludes full new proofs of two of the central Robertson-Seymourtheorems (as well as a detailed sketch of the entire proof of theircelebrated Graph Minor Theorem). Secondly, there is now a section ofhints for all the exercises, to enhance their value for both individual study and classroom use. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Dense reading
I have to read this book to prepare for a summer research program; however unfortunately for a high school student, this text is unreasonably concise with the proofs and makes for very tough independent study.

An exciting book.
Really, this book is very nice. It is simple to read (its language is quite easy) yet serious and precise. It covers many important aspects of the pure graph theory , leaving there applications and algorithms to an algorithmic graph theory book. So, to learn the core of the pure graph theory, this book is your choice, espesially if you are a computer science student (Because it dosen't deal deeply with tough mathematics).

Small yet comprehensive.
An excellent book. With minimum knowledge and an open mind, you can work rapidly throughout this book. I used it as a reference for some work I'm currently doing on the structure of extremal graphs and it came in very handy. To sum up, it's what you would normally expect from Springer's series on grad math texts.

Exellent Introduction
Almost no pre-requisites are needed for this book, (There is a short section which touches on Linear Alg, and another on very elementary topology) and yet it will take you from the very basic notions, to research level problems in this subject. It covers almost all the major notions about graphs, including coloring, matching, flows... Any reader is bound to find the section on Ramsey theory especially interesting. However, infinite graphs and Algebric graph theory are not covered.

There is a useful commentary on the references at the end of each chapter. ... Read more

Book Description

The study of random graphs was begun by Paul Erdös and Alfred Renyi in the 1960s and now has a comprehensive literature. A compelling element has been the threshold function, a short range in which events rapidly move from almost certainly false to almost certainly true. This book now joins the study of random graphs (and other random discrete objects) with mathematical logic. The possible threshold phenomena are studied for all statements expressible in a given language. Often, there is a zero-one law that every statement holds with probability near zero or near one. The methodologies involve probability, discrete structures and logic, with an emphasis on discrete structures. The book will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in discrete mathematics. ... Read more

Book Description

In this appealing and well-written text, Richard Bronson gives readers a substructure for a firm understanding of the abstract concepts of linear algebra and its applications. The author starts with the concrete andcomputational (a 3 x 5 matrix describing a stores inventory) and leads the reader to a choice of major applications (Markov chains, least squares approximation, and solution of differential equations using Jordan normal form). The first three chapters address the basics: matrices, vector spaces, and linear transformations. The next three cover eigenvalues, Euclidean inner products, and Jordan canonical forms, offering possibilities that can be tailored to the instructors taste and to the length of the course. Bronsons approach to computation is modern and algorithmic, and his theory is clean and straightforward. Throughout, the views of the theory presented are broad and balanced. Key material is highlighted in the text and summarized at end of each chapter. The book also includes ample exercises with answers and hints. With its inclusion of all the needed pedagogical features, this text will be a pleasure for teachers and students alike.

* Gives a firm substructure for understanding linear algebra and its applications
* Introduces deductive reasoning and helps the reader develop a facility with mathematical proofs
* Begins with the concrete and computational (a 3 x 5 matrix describing a stores inventory) and leads the reader to a choice of major applications (Markov chains, least squares approximation, and solution of differential equations using Jordan normal form)
* Covers matrices, vector spaces, linear transformations, as well as applications to Jordan canonical forms, differential equations, and Markov chains
* Gives computational algorithms for finding eigenvalues and eigenvectors
* Provides a balanced approach to computation and theory
* Highlights key material in the text as well as in summaries at the end of each chapter
* Includes ample exercises with answers and hints, in addition to other learning features ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Well written, but too many typos and mistakes.
Overall this is very well written, an excellent introduction to the subject. It would definitely be a five-star book if it weren't for all the mistakes. A few typos are acceptable, but too many of the example problems and solutions had incorrect, confusing errors. I spent most of my reading time trying to sort these out!

Very good and easy introduction
As I started my studies at Uni and we got this horrible Algebra teacher I was looking for some good book to help me pass this course. This book met all my requirements. This book starts with a very easy example of a matrix and builds up from there with easy to follow steps. Even though the book is very easy to read and explains Algebra very comprehensively it still meets the universitiy-level. Everything stated is formally proved or left as an exercise. An excellent book for a guy that thought he'd never understand linear algebra. This book proved me wrong. It may lack some topics, but the ones in the book surely can't be found elsewehre explained as good as in there. ... Read more

Book Description

From the reviews: "Serre's notes on groups acting on trees have appeared in various forms (all in French) over the past ten years and they have had a profound influence on the development of many areas, for example, the theory of ends of discrete groups. This fine translation is very welcome and I strongly recommend it as an introduction to an important subject. In Chapter I, which is self-contained, the pace is fairly gentle. The author proves the fundamental theorem for the special cases of free groups and tree products before dealing with the (rather difficult) proof of the general case." (A.W. Mason in Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society 1982) ... Read more

Book Description

Hardbound. The book, suitable as both an introductory reference and as a text book in the rapidly growing field of topological graph theory, models both maps (as in map-coloring problems) and groups by means of graph imbeddings on sufaces.Automorphism groups of both graphs and maps are studied.In addition connections are made to other areas of mathematics, such as hypergraphs, block designs, finite geometries, and finite fields.There are chapters on the emerging subfields of enumerative topological graph theory and random topological graph theory, as well as a chapter on the composition of English church-bell music.The latter is facilitated by imbedding the right graph of the right group on an appropriate surface, with suitable symmetries.Throughout the emphasis is on Cayley maps: imbeddings of Cayley graphs for finite groups as (possibly branched) covering projections of surface imbeddings of loop graphs with one vertex.This is not as restric ... Read more

Book Description

The goal of this book is to provide a solid mathematical foundation via visualization of real world data.This book uses technology as a tool to solve problems, motivate concepts, explore and preview mathematical concepts and to find curves of best fit to the data. Most mathematical concepts are developed and illustrated both algebraically and graphically, with the more intuitive and appropriate method presented first. The authors use their extensive teaching and writing experiences to guide and support readers through the typical difficult areas. ... Read more

Book Description

This text is a self-contained study of expander graphs, specifically, their explicit construction. Expander graphs are highly connected but sparse, and while being of interest within combinatorics and graph theory, they can also be applied to computer science and engineering. Only a knowledge of elementary algebra, analysis and combinatorics is required because the authors provide the necessary background from graph theory, number theory, group theory and representation theory. Thus the text can be used as a brief introduction to these subjects and their synthesis in modern mathematics. ... Read more

Book Description

This introduction to discrete mathematics is aimed primarily at undergraduates in mathematics and computer science at the freshmen and sophomore levels. The text has a distinctly applied orientation and begins with a survey of number systems and elementary set theory. Included are discussions of scientific notation and the representation of numbers in computers. Lists are presented as an example of data structures. An introduction to counting includes the Binomial Theorem and mathematical induction, which serves as a starting point for a brief study of recursion. The basics of probability theory are then covered.

Graph study is discussed, including Euler and Hamilton cycles and trees. This is a vehicle for some easy proofs, as well as serving as another example of a data structure. Matrices and vectors are then defined. The book concludes with an introduction to cryptography, including the RSA cryptosystem, together with the necessary elementary number theory, e.g., Euclidean algorithm, Fermat's Little Theorem.

Good examples occur throughout. At the end of every section there are two problem sets of equal difficulty. However, solutions are only given to the first set. References and index conclude the work.

A math course at the college level is required to handle this text. College algebra would be the most helpful. ... Read more

Book Description

Clear, comprehensive introduction emphasizes graph imbedding but also covers thoroughly the connections between topological graph theory and other areas of mathematics. Discussion of imbeddings into surfaces is combined with a complete proof of the classification of closed surfaces. Authors explore the role of voltage graphs in the derivation of genus formulas, explain the Ringel-Youngs theorem—a proof that revolutionized the field of graph theory—and examine the genus of a group, including imbeddings of Cayley graphs. 1987 edition. Many figures.
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Reviews (1)

Excellent
This book is written at a graduate level. It is written, for the most part, clearly and methodically. There are about 300 problems throughout the text, but there are no solutions in this book for those problems.

Titles of the 6 Chapters (with the number of pages in each chapter): 1) Introduction (to graph theory), 55; 2) Voltage Graphs and Covering Spaces, 40; 3) Surfaces and Graph Embeddings, 68; 4) Imbedded Voltage Graphs and Current Graphs, 54; 5) Map Colorings, 35; and 6) The Genus of a Group, 71.

This book is sufficient for self-study. ... Read more

Book Description

This text offers an introduction to the theory of graphs and its application in engineering and science. The first part covers the main graph theoretic topics: connectivity, trees, traversability, planarity, coloring, covering, matching, digraphs, networks, matrices of a graph, graph theoretic algorithms, and matroids. In the second part, these concepts are applied to problems in engineering, operations reserach, and science as well as to an interesting set of miscellaneous problems, thus iluustrating their broad applicability. Some effort has been made to present applications that use not merely the notation and terminology of graph theory, but its actual mathematical results. Some of the applications, such as in molecular evolution, facilities layout, and graffic network design, have never appeared before in book form. Written at an advanced undergraduate to beginning graduate level, the book is suitable for students of mathematics, engineering, operations resrach, computer science, and physical sciences as well as for researchers and practitioners with an interest in graph theoretic modelling. ... Read more

Book Description

Algorithmic Graph Theory and Perfect Graphs, first published in 1980, has become the classic introduction to the field. This new Annals edition continues to convey the message that intersection graph models are a necessary and important tool for solving real-world problems. It remains a stepping stone from which the reader may embark on one of many fascinating research trails.

The past twenty years have been an amazingly fruitful period of research in algorithmic graph theory and structured families of graphs. Especially important have been the theory and applications of new intersection graph models such as generalizations of permutation graphs and interval graphs. These have lead to new families of perfect graphs and many algorithmic results. These are surveyed in the new Epilogue chapter in this second edition.

? New edition of the "Classic" book on the topic
? Wonderful introduction to a rich research area
? Leading author in the field of algorithmic graph theory
? Beautifully written for the new mathematician or computer scientist
? Comprehensive treatment ... Read more

Book Description

Centered around the fundamental issue of graph isomorphism, this text goes beyond classical graph problems of shortest paths, spanning trees, flows in networks, and matchings in bipartite graphs. Advanced algorithmic results and techniques of practical relevance are presented in a coherent and consolidated way. This book introduces graph algorithms on an intuitive basis followed by a detailed exposition in a literate programming style, with correctness proofs as well as worst-case analyses. Furthermore, full C++ implementations of all algorithms presented are given using the LEDA library of efficient data structures and algorithms. Numerous illustrations, examples, and exercises, and a comprehensive bibliography support students and professionals in using the book as a text and source of reference. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Intersting Studies Hampered by LEDA and LP Dependencies
I'm pleased with the text in this book; the descriptions are almost all clear, and reading through the book gives me insight into some more interesting problems in trees and graphs. The high points of the book are its treaments of tree and graph isomorphism, but I also found the discussions of non-traditional traversal algorithms on trees and graphs very interesting. The author discussions leaf-first, breadth-first, and depth-first traversals and provides algorithms for their implementation. Many of the algorithms include correctness proofs.

These topics alone made the book worth its to me. A deep academic book that costs less than $50 is nearly unheared-of.

Unfortunately, there are two flaws that make the book hard to use. In a nutshell, the author expects the reader to buy into a couple of pretty invasive and expensive propositions.

First, the author decided to use literate programming for all of his presented algorithms and code fragments. This isn't so bad, since literate programming is about documenting code. If you suppose that the author wrote the code, then documented it, then calld it a book, using a tool like literate programming seems like a natural choice.

But if you're not familiar with literate programming, it's a bit of a chore. The author's introduction to literate programming doesn't help with some of the questions even an experienced programmer might have wend reading the text. More practically, literate programming enforces operators that are different than most C/C++ developers are familiar with, and can cause confusion when reading the text. ^ is used, for example, to indicate a logical and, where C/C++ developers expect it to indicate a bitwise-exclusive or.

While it's esay to eventually overcome such tricks of memory, I've been finding it hard to scan literate programs to find definitions and declarations. The author doesn't include a CD (and at this cover price, that is hard to fault) but also doesn't make his code available for download. His website includes a LEDA-based program that interactively demonstrates some algorithms, but doesn't include code for the algorithm his own books develops and discusses.

The other decision made by the author, to the overwhelming inconvenience of this reader, is the reliance on the LEDA library for his samples and programs. The algorithms are understandable without the library, but a reader without access to LEDA doesn't benefit from any of the visualizations the author provides. , and several include

In fact, the author spends about 40 pages discussing LEDA and the characteristics of its implementation. Maybe researchers working on tree and graph algorithms all use LEDA and have ready access to it, but the literate programming code provided to for some of the algorithms isn't useful to readers who aren't familiar with LEDA, as researching the definitions and declarations themsleves becomes arduous.

The bibliography is very diverse, with more than 380 entries and is well-cited throughout the book. Unfortunately, the author sometimes relies on the bibliography too much. On page 392, the author brings up "the so-called graph isopomorphism disease" without defining it himself; he instead relies on his bibliography entries to give the user any definition or background on the "disease".

Unfortunately, the index received not nearly as much attention as the bibliography; neglecting whitespace, it's scarcely more than a single page long!

The book appears to be something more than a research paper, but is written much like a research apper would be. The book probably also serves well for a class that teaches this subject, and assumes LEDA and literate programming as prerequisites. But as a commercial developer who's interested in applying advanced graph and tree algorithms to the work I'm doing, I found the book has limited its value by relying on LEDA and applying literate programming.

All this said, I still feel it's appropriate to give the book four stars. The material covered is hard to find elsewhere, and with some effort I can overcome the LEDA and literate programming hurdles. Since I don't use LEDA or literate programming day-to-day, I'll have to overcome that unfamiliarity every time I pick up the book as a reference. ... Read more

Book Description

This monograph provides and explains the mathematics behind geometric graph theory, which studies the properties of a graph that consists of nodes placed in Euclidean space so that edges can be added to connect points that are close to one another. For example, a collection of trees scattered in a forest and the disease that is passed between them, a set of nests of animals or birds on a region and the communication between them or communication between communications stations or nerve cells. Aimed at graduate students and researchers in probability, statistics, combinatorics and graph theory including computer scientists, it covers topics such as: technical tools, edge and component counts, vertex degrees, clique and chromatic number, and connectivity. Applications of this theory are used in the study of neural networks, spread of disease, astrophysics and spatial statistics. ... Read more