In mathematics, a colored matroid is a matroid whose elements are labeled from a set of colors, which can be any set that suits the purpose, for instance the set of the first n positive integers, or the sign set {+, −}.
The interest in colored matroids is through their invariants, especially the colored Tutte polynomial, which generalizes the Tutte polynomial of a signed graph of Kauffman (1989).
There has also been study of optimization problems on matroids where the objective function of the optimization depends on the set of colors chosen as part of a matroid basis.
Famous quotes containing the word colored:
“...you don’t have to be as good as white people, you have to be better or the best. When Negroes are average, they fail, unless they are very, very lucky. Now, if you’re average and white, honey, you can go far. Just look at Dan Quayle. If that boy was colored he’d be washing dishes somewhere.”
—Annie Elizabeth Delany (b. 1891)