Tuesday, 31 January 2023 When are two graphs really the same?

For the third talk in Famnit's cycle of lectures about mathematics (Famnitovi Izleti v matematično vesolje), Dr. Ted Dobson lectured about a graph, a relatively simple object. It has two parts, dots (which we call vertices) and lines between pairs of dots (which we call edges). They discussed the problem of when two graphs are really “the same”, and what this means. This is a famous problem, called the “graph isomorphism problem”. After looking at some examples, they talked about the current state of the problem, and end by considering graphs that are “symmetric”.

About the lecturer:

Ted Dobson received his PhD in 1995 from Louisiana State University in the USA. After 20 years at the University of Mississippi in the USA and after many years of visits to Slovenian mathematicians, he became a professor at the University of Primorska, in 2018. His research area is symmetries on graphs, together with related areas.

Slides from the lecture can be found HERE.