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Graph Theory: Favorite Conjectures and Open Problems - 1

Ralucca Gera, Stephen Hedetniemi, and Craig Larson, editors
Publisher: 
Springer
Publication Date: 
2016
Number of Pages: 
291
Format: 
Hardcover
Series: 
Problem Books in Mathematics
Price: 
79.99
ISBN: 
9783319319384
Category: 
Problem Book
BLL Rating: 

The Basic Library List Committee suggests that undergraduate mathematics libraries consider this book for acquisition.

[Reviewed by
Miklós Bóna
, on
02/14/2017
]

The title is accurate. This is a collection of 16 independent papers by 17 authors. Each of these chapters is self-contained and can be understood by readers with no more than an undergraduate class in graph theory.

The problems are easy to state but extremely difficult to solve, which is often a tell-tale sign of deep mathematics. The writing style necessarily changes from paper to paper, but is always reader-friendly, and the authors always put their subject into historical context. The list of these chapters can be found at the publisher’s web site. The reader will notice that classical graph theory (Hamiltonian cycles, graph parameters, Ramsey numbers) is well-represented here. There are many areas that do not appear at all, but fortunately the book is just the first volume of a planned series.

The only flaw that this reviewer found is that the short introduction of the book manages to misspell all Hungarian names that it contains, and to write them in a different way from one page to another.

The format and accessibility of the book make it a good choice for a course or seminar in which each student can present a chapter. This reviewer would be happy to participate in a course like that.


Miklós Bóna is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Florida.

See the table of contents in the publisher's webpage.