Betti Number - Example: The First Betti Number in Graph Theory

Example: The First Betti Number in Graph Theory

In topological graph theory the first Betti number of a graph G with n vertices, m edges and k connected components equals

This may be proved straightforwardly by mathematical induction on the number of edges. A new edge either increments the number of 1-cycles or decrements the number of connected components.

See cyclomatic complexity for an application of the first Betti number in software engineering.

Read more about this topic:  Betti Number

Famous quotes containing the words number, graph and/or theory:

    To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. It is not the part of men, but of fanatics, or of mathematicians, if you will, to say, that, the shortness of life considered, it is not worth caring whether for so short a duration we were sprawling in want, or sitting high. Since our office is with moments, let us husband them.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    In this Journal, my pen is a delicate needle point, tracing out a graph of temperament so as to show its daily fluctuations: grave and gay, up and down, lamentation and revelry, self-love and self-disgust. You get here all my thoughts and opinions, always irresponsible and often contradictory or mutually exclusive, all my moods and vapours, all the varying reactions to environment of this jelly which is I.
    W.N.P. Barbellion (1889–1919)

    It is not enough for theory to describe and analyse, it must itself be an event in the universe it describes. In order to do this theory must partake of and become the acceleration of this logic. It must tear itself from all referents and take pride only in the future. Theory must operate on time at the cost of a deliberate distortion of present reality.
    Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)