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Konigsberg Bridge Problem: Jayesh Saxena Leonhard Euler

The document describes the Konigsberg bridge problem, which asked if it was possible to take a walk through the city of Konigsberg crossing each of its seven bridges exactly once. Euler abstracted the problem into a graph representation and showed that a necessary condition for a solution is for each land area to be connected to an even number of bridges. Since the land areas in Konigsberg were connected to odd numbers of bridges, there was no solution. This was the first theorem of graph theory and helped establish topology as a field.

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Ananya Saxena
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324 views

Konigsberg Bridge Problem: Jayesh Saxena Leonhard Euler

The document describes the Konigsberg bridge problem, which asked if it was possible to take a walk through the city of Konigsberg crossing each of its seven bridges exactly once. Euler abstracted the problem into a graph representation and showed that a necessary condition for a solution is for each land area to be connected to an even number of bridges. Since the land areas in Konigsberg were connected to odd numbers of bridges, there was no solution. This was the first theorem of graph theory and helped establish topology as a field.

Uploaded by

Ananya Saxena
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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KONIGSBERG

BRIDGE PROBLEM

Leonhard Euler
Jayesh Saxena
What is the problem?
The city of Konigsberg in Russia, was set on both sides of
the Pregel River, and included two large islands which were
connected to each other and the mainland by seven bridges.
The problem was to find a walk through the city that would
cross each bridge once and only once.
The islands could not be reached by any route other than
the bridges.
 Every bridge must have been crossed completely every time
(one could not walk half way onto the bridge and then turn
around and later cross the other half from the other side).
Map of Konigsberg in Eulers Time

The River and the bridges are highlighted.


Euler’s Analysis
Euler pointed out that the choice of route
inside each landmass is irrelevant.
The only important feature of a route is the
sequence of bridges crossed.
So this allowed him to do away with all the
geographic details and exact positioning and
shape of the bridges and the landmasses.
Euler’s Representation Of The
Problem

 → 

Bridge
 → 
Node
Euler’s Analysis Continued
He converted the landmasses into nodes and the
bridges into edges connecting the nodes. This
mathematical structure is called a graph
He observed that whenever one enters a vertex by a
bridge, one leaves the vertex by a bridge (unless they
are the end points of the walk) .
In other words, during any walk in the graph, the
number of times one enters a non-terminal vertex
equals the number of times one leaves it.
Now if every bridge is traversed exactly once it follows
that for each land mass (except possibly for the ones
chosen for the start and finish), the number of bridges
touching that land mass is even.
But the four land masses in the original problem are
touched by an odd number of bridges (one is touched
by 5 bridges and the other three by 3).
Since at most two land masses can serve as the
endpoints of a putative walk, the existence of a walk
traversing each bridge once leads to a contradiction.
HENCE THERE IS NO SOLUTION TO
THE PROBLEM OF THE 7 BRIDGES OF
KONIGSBERG
Euler shows that the existence of a walk in a graph which
traverses each edge once depends on the degrees of the
nodes.
The degree of a node is the number of edges touching it.
Euler's argument shows that a necessary condition for the
walk of the desired form to exist is that the graph be
connected and have exactly zero or two nodes of odd
degree.
 This condition turns out also to be sufficient -- a result
stated by Euler and later proven by Carl Hierholzer.
Such a walk is now called an Eulerian Path or Euler
walk in his honor. Further, if there are nodes of odd
degree, all Eulerian paths start at one of them and end at
the other.
Since the graph corresponding to historical
Königsberg has four nodes of odd degree, it cannot
have an Eulerian path.
An alternative form of the problem asks for a path that
traverses all bridges and also has the same starting and
ending point. Such a walk is called an Eulerian Circuit
or an Euler tour.
Such a circuit exists if and only if the graph is
connected and there are no nodes of odd degree at all.
All Eulerian circuits are also Eulerian paths, but not all
paths are also circuits.
HOW THE PROBLEM CAN BE SOLVED

The Addition Of An 8th


Bridge solves the
problems
The Generalization to Graph Theory

Euler went on to generalize this mode of thinking,


laying a foundation for graph theory:
Definition: A network is a figure made up of points
(vertices) connected by non-intersecting curves (arcs).
Definition: A vertex is called odd if it has an odd
number of arcs leading to it, other wise it is called
even.
Definition: An Euler path is a continuous path that
passes through every arc once and only once.
Theorems Given By Euler

If a network has more than two odd vertices, it


does not have an Euler path.
If a network has two or zero odd vertices, it has at
least one Euler path. In particular, if a network
has exactly two odd vertices, then its Euler paths
can only start on one of the odd vertices, and end
on the other.
SOME PROBLEMS
SOLUTIONS
ANOTHER PROBLEM
SOLUTION
SINGNIFICANCE IN MATHEMATICS
In the history of mathematics, Euler's solution of the
Königsberg bridge problem is considered to be the first
theorem of graph theory, a subject now generally
regarded as a branch of combinatorics.
In addition, Euler's recognition that the key
information was the number of bridges and the list of
their endpoints presaged the development of topology.
The difference between the actual layout and the
graph schematic is a good example of the idea that
topology is not concerned with the rigid shape of
objects.
THANK YOU

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