We have to see people as

CRAYONS - they differ by shades,

yet all manage to live together in one box.

Colors on Graphs
 Outline
• Graph – definition, examples
• History of graph coloring
• Types of coloring – vertex, edge, map
• Vertex coloring – proper, chromatic number,
bounds, applications
• Edge coloring

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 Graphs
• Mathematical structures used to model
pairwise relations between objects from a
certain collection.
• A graph G is a triple consisting of a vertex set
V(G), an edge set E(G), and a relation that
associates with each edge two vertices (not
necessarily distinct) called its endpoints.
y u

x V(G) = {u, v, w, x, y}
E(G) = {uv, uw, ux, vx, vw, xw, xy}
w v
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 Narsingh Deo, Indian
Frank Harary (1921-2005)
American

Jonathan Gross Jay Yellen

Americans Douglas B West
American
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Let G be
simple
undirected
connected

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 Petersen graph

1839-1910
Denmark, Northern Europe
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993
364 pages

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 Graphs
Graph Vertices Edges
Flow
(Network) (Nodes) (Arcs)
Telephones exchanges, Cables, fiber optics, Voice, video,
Communications computers, satellites microwave relays packets
Gates, registers,
Circuits processors
Wires Current

Mechanical Joints Rods, beams, springs Heat, energy

Reservoirs, pumping
Hydraulic stations, lakes
Pipelines Fluid, oil

Financial Stocks, currency Transactions Money

goods,
Airports, rail yards, Highways, railbeds,
Transportation street intersections airway routes
vehicles,
passengers

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 The History of Graph coloring
ச ொல் ல மறந்த கதத

The first result on graph coloring was about

coloring of maps.

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 The saga

Graph theory formally begun in 1736

Leonhard Euler's (Swiss mathematician and
physicist) paper on “Seven Bridges of
Königsberg” , published in 1736.

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Augustus De Morgan (1806 –1871)
British mathematician

• Formulated De Morgan's laws

• Born in Madurai
• His father held various appointments in the
service of the East India Company.
• Ada Lovelace was Morgan’s student.

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 Francis Guthrie (1831 - 1899 )
South African mathematician and botanist
• Postulated - four colors would be
sufficient to color any map.
• This became known as the Four
Color Problem.
• Remained one of the most
famous unsolved problems in
topology for more than a century.
• Proven in 1976 using a
controversial computer-aided
proof which was lengthy and
inelegant. DAMCS 11
 Francis Guthrie (1831 - 1899)
South African mathematician and botanist

• First posed the FOUR Colour

Problem in 1852 while coloring a
map of England.
• At the time, Guthrie was a student
of Augustus De Morgan at
University College, London.
• Guthrie’s brother passed on the
question to his mathematics teacher
Augustus de Morgan , who
mentioned it in a letter to William
Hamilton in 1852.
DAMCS 12
 William Rowan Hamilton Arthur Cayley
(1805 –1865) (1821 –1895)
Irish physicist, astronomer, and British mathematician
mathematician

Arthur Cayley raised the

problem at a meeting of
the London Mathematical
Society in 1879, 27 years
after the formulation of
the problem.

They postulated the Cayley–Hamilton theorem for matrices

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• Alfred Bray Kempe (1849–1922) British mathematician
• Studied at Trinity College, Cambridge where Arthur Cayley
was one of his teachers.
• In 1879 Kempe wrote his famous "proof" of the four color
theorem.
• For his accomplishment Kempe was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society and later President of the London
Mathematical Society.
• Percy John Heawood (1861-1955) British mathematician
• In 1890 exposed a flaw in Kempe's proof, that had been
considered as valid for 11 years.
• With the four color theorem being open again he
established the five color theorem instead.
The 4 color problem remained unsolved for more than a century !
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 Kenneth Ira Appel (1932 - ) Wolfgang Haken (1928 - )
American mathematician German mathematician

• In 1976, these colleagues at the University of Illinois, solved the

FOUR color theorem.
• Proof used ideas of Heawood and Kempe.
• The first major computer-aided proof.
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 Claude Berge (1926 –2002)
French mathematician
• One of the modern founders of combinatorics
and graph theory.
• Wrote five books,
1. Game theory (1957)
2. Graph theory and its applications (1958),
3. Topological spaces (1959)
4. Principles of combinatorics (1968)
5. Hypergraphs (1970)

Each being translated in several languages and

becoming a classic.
A frequent visitor to the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.
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 Vertex coloring

• A vertex coloring is an assignment f: V(G) →C

from its vertex set to a set C whose elements
are called colors.
• A proper vertex coloring is a vertex coloring
such that adjacent vertices receive different
colors.

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DAMCS 20
 Vertex coloring

• A vertex coloring is an assignment f: V(G) →C

from its vertex set to a set C whose elements
are called colors.
• A proper vertex coloring is a vertex coloring
such that adjacent vertices receive different
colors.
• The chromatic number of G, (G), is the
minimum number of different colors required
for a proper vertex coloring of G.

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What is the chromatic number of this graph?

Proper coloring with 5 colors The chromatic number is 4

The labels are colors; the vertices of one color, form a color class.
In a proper coloring, each color class is an independent set (a set
of mutually non adjacent vertices).

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 (G) for common class of G

• Petersen graph – 3
• n-vertex Complete graph – n
• Bipartite graph – 2
• Even order cycle – 2
• Odd order cycle – 3
• Odd order wheel – 3
• Even order wheel – 4

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 Clique

• A subset of vertices S ⊆ V such that every two

vertices in the subset are connected by an
edge.
• The induced subgraph of S is complete.
• The clique number ω(G) - the number of
vertices in a maximum clique in G.
So, is
chromatic
The clique number is 4
number =
The chromatic number is also 4
clique
DAMCS number? 24
 How high can the colors fly?
Upper bound
• (G)  (G) + 1,  - max degree
• (G)  (G), if G is neither a complete graph nor an
odd cycle.
• If G has degree sequence d1 ≥ d2 ≥ … ≥ dn, then

Petersen graph
25
DAMCS
 To what depth can the colors sink?

Lower bound
• (G)  (G)
• (G)  Ceil(n(G)/(G)),  - max ind set

Petersen graph

(G) = 5 (G) = 2 (G) = 2 (G) = 3

(G) = 5 (G) = 3 (G) = 3 (G) = 3
Notice the equality &DAMCS
save in memory bank ! 26
DAMCS 27
How can a practical situation be made

A few applications of vertex coloring

follows …

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 1. Flight Gates
Flights need gates, but times overlap.
How many gates needed?

Time
122

145

Flights 67

257

306

99 DAMCS 29
 Conflict Graph
• Each vertex represents a flight
Needs gate at same time
• Each edge represents a conflict
145

306

99

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122

145

67

257

306

99

257 122
145

67
306

99
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 Coloring the Vertices

257 122
145

Assign gates:
67
306
257, 67
122,145
99
4 colors 99
306
4 gates
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 Better Coloring
3 colors
257 122 3 gates
145

67
306

99

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 2. Register Allocation in compilers
(introduced in 1981)
This is a
graph
coloring
problem.

• Given a program, we want to execute it as quick as possible.

• Calculations can be done most quickly if the values are stored in
registers.
• Registers are very expensive, and there are only a few in a computer.
• Therefore we need to use the registers efficiently.
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 Register Allocation
• Each node is a variable.
• Two variables have a conflict
if they cannot be put into the
same register.

a and b cannot use the same register, because they store different
values.
c and d cannot use the same register otherwise the value of c is
overwritten.

Each color corresponds to a register.

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 Good News
For some special graphs, we know exactly when they are k-colorable.
Interval graphs (conflict graphs of intervals):
b
b d
d
a
a
c c

For interval graphs,

min number of colors needed = max size of a complete subgraph

A graph G is perfect if (H)=(H) for every induced subgraph HG.
So the “flight gate” problem and the “register allocation” can be solved.
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 3. Frequency Assignment

Assign frequencies to radio stations to avoid interference.

minimum number of
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 4. Cellular architecture

• Mobile users communicate only via base station

• One low power transmitter per cell
• Frequency reuse–limited spectrum
B
• Cell splitting to increase capacity A

• Reuse distance: minimum distance between two cells

using same channel for satisfactory signal to noise ratio.
• Measured in # of cells in between.

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 Reuse pattern for reuse distance 2?

One frequency can be (re)used in all cells of the same color

Minimize number of frequencies=colors
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 Reuse distance 2 – reuse pattern

3
C
O
L
O
R
S

One frequency can be (re)used in all cells of the same color

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Reuse pattern for reuse distance 3?

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Reuse distance 3 – reuse pattern

7
C
O
L
O
R
S

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 5. Final Exams

• Subjects conflict if student takes both

• So need different time slots.

• How short an exam period?

This is also a graph coloring problem.

Each vertex is a course, two courses have an edge if there is a conflict.

The graph has a k-coloring if and only if the exams can be

scheduled in k days.
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 How to bridge the gap

Vertex Edge
coloring & coloring

Dual

One is a dual of the other

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 The Rainbow connection

• Introduced by Chartrand et al. in 2008.

• Communication of information between
agencies of government.
• The Department of Homeland Security of USA
was created in 2003 in response to the
weaknesses discovered in the transfer of
classified information after the September 11,
2001 terrorist attacks.

DAMCS 47
 Call for emergency

• An unanticipated aftermath of those deadly

attacks was the realization that law enforcement
and intelligence agencies couldn’t communicate
with each other through their regular channels,
from radio systems to databases.
• The technologies utilized were separate entities
and prohibited shared access, meaning that there
was no way for officers and agents to cross check
information between various organizations.

DAMCS 48
 Call for emergency
• The information needs to be protected since it relates
to national security.
• There must also be procedures that permit access
between appropriate parties.
• Two-fold issue.
• Assign information transfer paths between agencies
which may have other agencies as intermediaries while
requiring a large enough number of passwords and
firewalls that is prohibitive to intruders, yet small
enough to manage.
• that is, one or more paths between every pair of
agencies have no password repeated.

DAMCS 49
 An immediate question

• What is the minimum number of passwords or

firewalls needed that allows one or more
secure paths between every two agencies so
that the passwords along each path are
distinct?
A dead end road is a good place to turn around

DAMCS 50
 Graph-theoretic model

• Let G be a nontrivial connected graph on which

an edge-coloring c : E(G)→{1, 2, ··· ,n}, n ∈ N, is
defined, where adjacent edges may be colored
the same.
• A path is rainbow if no two edges of it are colored
the same.
• An edge-coloring graph G is rainbow connected if
any two vertices are connected by a rainbow
path.
• An edge-coloring under which G is rainbow
connected is called a rainbow coloring.
DAMCS 51
 Graph-theoretic model

• The rainbow connection number of a

connected graph G, denoted by rc(G), as the
smallest number of colors that are needed in
order to make G rainbow connected.
• So the question mentioned above can be
modelled by means of computing the value of
rainbow connection number.

DAMCS 52
 B
A D

G
F E

B
A D

G
F E

DAMCS 53
 Map coloring
• You are now in a position to define this
concept!

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DAMCS 56
 References
• Appel, K. and W. Haken, Every Planar Map is Four Colorable, American
Mathematical Society, Providence, 1989.
• Basavaraju, M. Chandran, L.S., Rajendra Prasad, D. and Ramaswamy, A.,
Rainbow connection number and radius, Graphs and Combinatorics,
(2012): 1-11.
• Xueliang Li, Yuefang Sun, Rainbow connections of graphs – A survey,
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.5747v2
• Xueliang Li, Yongtang Shi, Yuefang Sun, Rainbow connections of graphs – A
survey, Graphs and Combinatorics, (2013) 29:1-38
• www.graphtheory.com
• www-sop.inria.fr/members/Frederic.Havet/habilitation/intro.pdf
• www.site.uottawa.ca/~ivan/GA-FCA.ppt

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CANNOT

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One way to keep momentum going is to have
constantly greater goals.
Michael Korda
British writer

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