Customer Reviews

Graph Theory

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I used this text in school, as a computer science student in a theoretical math class.

If you are looking for examples of computer algorithms, look elsewhere; the closest this will get you is to "existence proofs", which is showing that something (such as a hamiltonian cycle) exists in a graph that has thus-and-such number of points or edges, but not tell you which sequence of points/edges make up that something. (For example, a graph can be embedded in a plane unless there's a subgraph that looks like K(5) or K(3,3) inside it - this is in about chapter 5, and an important theorem. The text proves this, but doesn't tell you HOW to embed the graph in a plane.)

That said, this is an excellent book for theoretical mathematics. I understand that the first two chapters can be used as a high school math text, as an introduction to proofs, and agree that it would work well.

As a formal introduction to proving theorems, especially in a self-contained world (you don't need many prerequisites for this, like you do for a topology or analysis text), this is pretty swell.

So, to the person who said that he didn't like this because there weren't algorithms in the book: you can find those in the semiliterate computer science textbooks. (I would insist that the last four words of the previous sentence are redundant.)

Look here for mathematics.

This is the abslolute classic in the field and a great introduction to this fascinating area of the discrete mathematics.

Good

This book was not published in 1995, but in 1969.

i was looking for some algorithms that solve the classical problems like shortest path and they were not even mentioned