Eulerian Path - Definition

Definition

An Eulerian trail, or Euler walk in an undirected graph is a path that uses each edge exactly once. If such a path exists, the graph is called traversable or semi-eulerian.

An Eulerian cycle, Eulerian circuit or Euler tour in an undirected graph is a cycle that uses each edge exactly once. If such a cycle exists, the graph is called Eulerian or unicursal. The term "Eulerian graph" is also sometimes used in a weaker sense to denote a graph where every vertex has even degree. For connected graphs the two definitions are equivalent, while a possibly unconnected graph is Eulerian in the weaker sense if and only if each connected component has an Eulerian cycle.

For directed graphs, "path" has to be replaced with directed path and "cycle" with directed cycle.

The definition and properties of Eulerian trails, cycles and graphs are valid for multigraphs as well.

An Eulerian orientation of an undirected graph G is an assignment of a direction to each edge of G such that, at each vertex v, the indegree of v equals the outdegree of v. Such an orientation exists for any undirected graph in which every vertex has even degree, and may be found by constructing an Euler tour in each connected component of G and then orienting the edges according to the tour. Every Eulerian orientation of a connected graph is a strong orientation, an orientation that makes the resulting directed graph strongly connected.

Read more about this topic:  Eulerian Path

Famous quotes containing the word definition:

    Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human experience, is relative; and the definition of it becomes unmeaning and useless in proportion to its abstractness. To define beauty not in the most abstract, but in the most concrete terms possible, not to find a universal formula for it, but the formula which expresses most adequately this or that special manifestation of it, is the aim of the true student of aesthetics.
    Walter Pater (1839–1894)

    The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
    William James (1842–1910)

    Scientific method is the way to truth, but it affords, even in
    principle, no unique definition of truth. Any so-called pragmatic
    definition of truth is doomed to failure equally.
    Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)