Encyclopedia > Three cottage problem

  Article Content

Three cottage problem

The three cottage problem is a problem in mathematical graph theory:

Suppose there are three cottages that each need to be connected to the gas, water, and electric companies. Is there a way to do so without any of the lines crossing each other?

In more formal terms, this asks whether the bipartite graph K3,3 is planar. Kazimierz Kuratowski proved in 1930 that K3,3 is nonplanar, and thus that the three cottage problem has no solution.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Royalist

... At its simplest, it refers to an adherent of a monarch or royal family. Of the more specific uses of the term, the most common include: 1. A supporter of King ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 29.4 ms