A Simple Visual Proof of a Powerful Idea 7 SHAR E

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A Simple Visual Proof of a Powerful Idea

7 Ramsey’s theorem predicts a surprising (and useful) consistency in the
organization of graphs. Here’s a simple visual proof of how it works.

Lucy Reading-Ikkanda/Quanta Magazine; Source: Jonathan

Jedwab, Simon Fraser University

A
recent advance in geometry makes heavy use of Ramsey’s Share this article
theorem, an important idea in another eld — graph theory.
Ramsey’s theorem states that in any graph where all points are
connected by either red lines or blue lines, you’re guaranteed to have a
Kevin Hartnett large subset of the graph that is completely uniform — that is, either Newsletter
Senior Writer all red or all blue. Get Quanta Magazine
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April 13, 2017

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uniform subset to be. Ramsey’s theorem states that somewhere out Most recent newsletter

there there’s a graph in which a subset of that size must arise.

Abstractions

Graph Theory

Mathematics It’s not obvious why this is true. Why can’t there be a graph where
Ramsey Theory
lines of di erent colors remain completely jumbled together?

I put this question to Jonathan Jedwab, a

mathematician at Simon Fraser University in British
Columbia. He responded with this example, which
provides a graphical intuition for why the theorem is
true.

Let’s take a simple case where you’re looking for a

subset of at least three lines that are completely
uniform. A hexagonal graph is guaranteed to give you
that subset. How?

Abstractions navigates promising ideas

Start with six points representing six people at a party.
in science and mathematics. Journey
Any two people at the party will either know each other
with us and join the conversation.
ahead of time or not know each other. If they know
each other, color the line between them red. If they
See all Abstractions blog
don’t know each other, color the line between them
blue. Every point will then have ve lines coming out of it; at least
three of those ve lines must be either red or blue.

A proof of Ramsey’s theorem would mean showing that no matter how

you connect the people, you’re guaranteed to end up with a triangle (a
uniform subset with three lines) that is either all blue or all red.

Let’s think about Person 1. At least three of her ve lines are going to
be red or blue. Given that, imagine she knows the people in positions 2,
4 and 5, and color those lines red.

Now, think about Person 2 and Person 5. If they know each other we’d
color the edge red and have a triangle of all one color, which we’re
trying to avoid. So color that edge blue.

Then think about the relationship between Person 4 and Person 5.

Again, to avoid a red triangle, we have to color that edge blue.

Lastly we have the relationship between Person 2 and Person 4. They

either know each other or they don’t, rendering the edge between
them red or blue. Either way, we’re compelled to create a triangle
that’s all one color, and Ramsey’s theorem is con rmed.

In larger graphs — cases with a million people, or many billion —

Ramsey’s theorem guarantees that all points in some vast subset of the
graph will be connected with lines of the same color. But how vast is
“vast”? Mathematicians aren’t sure. In particular, they don’t know the
minimum size a graph can be before we are guaranteed a subset of a
given size (for all possible sizes). In this way, Ramsey’s theorem is like
many tools we use every day — it’s useful, even if we don’t understand
everything about how it works.

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