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3 - Classical Graph Theory

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Béla Bollobás
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Robert Morris
Affiliation:
IMPA, Rio de Janeiro
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Summary

This chapter gives an overview of several classical topics in the study of graph theory, including perfect matchings, Hamilton cycles, Eulerian trails, proper vertex- and edge-colourings, and connectivity. We begin by proving Hall’s theorem on perfect matchings, Kőnig’s theorem on vertex-covers, and Dirac’s theorem on the minimum degree threshold for a graph to contain a Hamilton cycle. The middle third of the chapter focuses on proper colourings; in particular, we give elegant proofs of Brooks’ theorem on vertex-colourings and Vizing’s theorem on edge-colourings. To finish the chapter, we prove the famous Max-Flow Min-Cut theorem of Ford and Fulkerson, and the fundamental theorems of Menger and Mader on k-connectivity

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Basic Graph Theory , pp. 80 - 131
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2026

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References

Further reading

Alon, N., Restricted colorings of graphs, In: Surveys in Combinatorics, Proceedings 14th British Combinatorial Conference, London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series, vol. 187, pp. 133, Cambridge University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Bollobás, B., Modern Graph Theory, Springer, 1998.10.1007/978-1-4612-0619-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bollobás, B., Extremal Graph Theory, London Mathematical Society Monographs 11, Academic Press, Inc., 1978. Republished by Dover, 2004.Google Scholar
Diestel, R., Graph Theory (5th edition), Springer, 2016.Google Scholar
Lovász, L. and Plummer, M. D., Matching Theory (2nd edition), American Mathematical Society, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molloy, M. and Reed, B., Graph Colouring and the Probabilistic Method, Springer, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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