Abstract
In many real-world situations, it is particularly convenient to describe the specified relationship between pairs of certain given objects by means of a diagram, in which points presents the objects and (directed or undirected) lines the relationship between pairs of the objects. For example, a national traffic map describes a condition of the communication lines among cities in the country, where the points represent cities and the lines represent the highways or the railways joining pairs of cities. Notice that in such diagrams one is mainly interested in whether or not two given points are joined by a line; the manner in which they are joined is immaterial. A mathematical abstraction of situations of this type gives rise to the concept of a graph.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Xu, J. (2003). Basic Concepts of Graphs. In: Theory and Application of Graphs. Network Theory and Applications, vol 10. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8698-6_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8698-6_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-4670-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-8698-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive