Mathematics in the Modern World: Mathematics of Graphs

1. Nicole wants to tour Asia. She will start and end her journey in Tokyo and visit Hong Kong,
Bangkok, Seoul, and Beijing. The airfares (in US Dollars) available to her between cities
are given in the table. Draw a weighted graph that represents the travel costs between
cities and use the greedy algorithm to find a low-cost route.

Tokyo Hong Bangkok Seoul Beijing

Kong
Tokyo --- 845 1275 470 880
Hong 845 --- 320 515 340
Kong
Bangkok 1275 320 --- 520 365
Seoul 470 515 520 --- 225
Beijing 880 340 365 225 ---

2. Use edge-picking algorithm to find a low-cost route for the traveller in item 1.

3. If a planar drawing of a graph has 15 edges and 8 vertices, how many faces does the
graph have?

4. Represent the map by a graph and find a coloring of the graph that uses the smallest
possible number of colors.

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5. Six friends are taking a film history course and, because they have procrastinated, need
to view several films the night before the final exam. They have rented a copy of each film
on DVD, and they have a total of three DVD players in different dorm rooms. If each film
is two hours long and they start watching at 8:00 p.m., how soon can they all be finished
watching the required films? Create a viewing schedule for the friends.
Film A needs to be viewed by Brian, Chris, and Damon.
Film B needs to be viewed by Allison and Fernando.
Film C needs to be viewed by Damon, Erin, and Fernando.
Film D needs to be viewed by Brian and Erin.
Film E needs to be viewed by Brian, Chris, and Erin.

6. Six different groups of children would like to visit the zoo and feed different animals.
(Assume each group will visit the zoo on only one day.)
Group 1 would like to feed the bears, dolphins, and gorillas.
Group 2 would like to feed the bears, elephants, and hippos.
Group 3 would like to feed the dolphins and elephants.
Group 4 would like to feed the dolphins, zebras, and hippos.
Group 5 would like to feed the bears and hippos.
Group 6 would like to feed the gorillas, hippos, and zebras.
Use graph coloring to find the minimum number of days that are required so that all groups
can feed the animals they would like to feed but no animals will be fed twice on the same
day. Design a schedule to accomplish this goal.

Credits:
Aufmann, R. et al, Mathematical Excursions. (2018)
Google Images.

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