Customer Reviews

Spectral Graph Theory (CBMS Regional Conference Series in Mathematics, No. 92)

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This book is elegant and accessible, with a coherent presentation, but is a bit dry and unmotivated. The book would benefit from more applications, which should not be hard to find. I felt like Chapter 8 was the high point of the book, with a discussion of random walks, a matrix-tree theorem and invariant field theory.

The researcher who needs an arsenal of technical results in a clear style will find it here; the student who desires some added perspective may come away somewhat dissatisfied.

I found some very good stuff in this book.
It is buried deep though.
Again Fan Chung writes a book on graph theory with
just about no simple examples or graphs at all.
The Cheeger constant and, both the volume and diameter measures
are not presented in an accessible way: just no real way to
calculate them is given.
What is important seems to be what isn't mentioned anywhere:
the Cartan, Dykin and Coxeter approach to graphs and large scale symmetry.
The treatment of the buckyball is the one concrete example and
the results instead of being explain are just given
without sufficient explanation.
I have also to review Fan Chung's 2006 lecture with Linyaun Lu Complex Graphs and Networks (Cbms Regional Conference Series in Mathematics) which appears to be a little better written.
Some one seem to have told Fan Chung that proofs with less an or equal to are O. K.: they are in most cases a bad mistake in a book such as this for graduate students.

This book is intended for the professional mathematician that want to learn about the misteries of the eigenspectrum of the graph laplacian.

A lot of misteries, a lot of fun.