In mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of graphs, which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects from a certain collection. A "graph" in this context is a collection of "vertices" or "nodes" and a collection of edges that connect pairs of vertices. A graph may be undirected, meaning that there is no distinction between the two vertices associated with each edge, or its edges may be directed from one vertex to another; see graph (mathematics) for more detailed definitions and for other variations in the types of graph that are commonly considered. Graphs are one of the prime objects of study in discrete mathematics.
The graphs studied in graph theory should not be confused with the graphs of functions or other kinds of graphs.
Refer to the glossary of graph theory for basic definitions in graph theory.
Read more about Graph Theory: Applications, History, Drawing Graphs, Graph-theoretic Data Structures
Famous quotes containing the words graph and/or theory:
“When producers want to know what the public wants, they graph it as curves. When they want to tell the public what to get, they say it in curves.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“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)