D1 Graph Theory - lesson plan

Lesson objective. To develop students understanding of graph theory Background. Students will have been introduced to the vocabulary of graphs and will know the relevant terminology: vertices, edges, degree (or order) of a vertex, cycle. By the end of the lesson students will understand the meaning of traversibility how to identify an Eulerian and a semi-Eulerian graph how to draw a graph given the number of vertices and edges.

Textbook reference Chapter 2, P43 P50 (part) part (i) Drawing graphs The table shows the number of vertices of degree 1, 2, 3 and 4 for five different graphs. Raw an example fo each of these graphs Order of vertex Graph 1 Graph 2 Graph 3 Graph 4 Graph 5 1 3 0 4 0 1 2 0 0 0 2 1 3 1 4 0 2 3 4 0 1 1 2 1 This type of question comes up on exam papers. A good way to go through this is to get students to come out and draw their graph on the board. In many cases, there will be more than one correct drawing, which is a good discussion point.

Part (ii) traversable graphs Which of the following diagrams can be drawn without taking your pencil off the paper?

How can you predict whether it will be possible to draw a shape without taking your pen off the paper? Where do you start and end each time? What features of the diagram are significant? Answer a can be drawn without taking your pen off the paper. You start at any vertex and end at the same vertex.

b cannot be drawn without taking your pen off the paper c can be drawn without taking your pen off the paper only if you start at an odd vertex. You will then end at a different odd vertex. In order for a graph to be TRAVERSABLE, it must have no more than two odd vertices

Part (iii) Konigsberg bridges The town of Konigsberg in East Prussia was built on the banks of the river Pregel, with islands that were linked together by seven bridges. The citizens of Konigsberg tried to find a route which would cross each bridge only once and allow them to end their walk where they had started. Can you find a suitable route? Historical note: Konigsberg is now in Russia and was renamed Kaliningrad . Due to bombing in the second world war, only four of the bridges remain.

Solution The map can be redrawn as a graph with four vertices (representing the land) and seven edges (representing the bridges). It can clearly be seen that this gives four vertices with odd order, so the graph is not traversable.

It is said that the citizens tried unsuccessfully to solve this problem for many years, but it was not until Leonard Euler tackled the problem that it was proved to be impossible. Euler published his proof, entitled Solution Problematis ad geometriam situs a pertinentis (The solution of problem relating to the geometry of position), in 1736 and laid the foundations for Graph Theory.

The problem has become one of finding a cycle which passes along every edge of the graph, called an EULERIAN cycle. Graphs which are traversable are called EULERIAN if all the vertices are even and SEMIEULERIAN if they contain two odd vertices. Part (iv) What is the significance of odd vertices? Find the number of edges and the sum of the degrees of all the vertices of the graphs in part (i) a 9 edges. 4+4+4+2+2+2 = 18 b 9 edges 2+4+3+3+3+3= 18 c 9 edges 4+4+3+3+2+2 = 18 Draw 3 connected graphs, each with a different number of vertices and edges. Record the degrees of all the vertices, what do you notice?

There are always an even number of odd vertices. From this we deduce that the sum of the degrees of the vertices in a connected graph is always even and is equal to twice the number of edges. Proof: Each edge has two ends, so it is counted twice in the sum of the degrees, thus the total of the degrees of the vertices is always even. Because each edge is counted twice, the sum of the degrees of the vertices is always twice the number of edges. (extension) This is known as the Handshaking Theorem and can be written deg v = 2e