Sean Li CS 4820 Notes Spring 2013 Introduction to Algorithms Lecture 17 2/27/13 Max-ow Min-cut Theorem (contd). Ford-Fulkerson Algorithm.

m. Has complexity O(mc), where C = minA,B {c(A, B)}. Works with rational capacities as well. However, it does not necessarily halt with irrational capacities: Consider 3 paths with 1, 1 , 2 , where is the golden ratio 1+2 5 . Write r = 1 . Then r2 = 1 r, and rk+2 = rk rk1 in general. We can obtain paths that go to 0 but do not reach 0 in nite time. Scaling Algorithm. Take to be the highest power of 2 less than or equal to the min capacity. Compute augmenting paths, and repeat with := /2. Complexity is O(m log C). Lemma. Each scaling phase takes at most 2m augmentations and takes O(m2 ) time.