Ramsey theory

From Citizendium
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.
This article is a stub and thus not approved.
Main Article
Discussion
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
External Links  [?]
Citable Version  [?]
 
This editable Main Article is under development and subject to a disclaimer.

Ramsey Theory is a branch of Graph theory which studies seemingly orderless systems and analyses the conditions under which order must be present. Typically it makes statements about the existence of specific sub-graphs in arbitrary graphs.

Ramsey Numbers

The Ramsey Number     is defined as the least integer n such that whenever the complete graph    is coloured, such that each edge is one of two colours, it contains either a    with all edges the first colour, or a    with all edges the second colour, if such an n exists.

Ramsey Numbers are rarely calculated, largely due to the rate at which the complexity of verifying the results grows.

Ramsey's Theorem

Ramsey's Theorem states that    exists