Review of Handbook of Graph Theory, Combinatorial Optimization, and Algorithms

Abstract

Some (admittedly controversial) models of physical reality propose that it is, at the fundamental level, based on a certain type of graph, called a spin-network (and this among other models of physical reality based on graphs). Recently, astronomers have verified that the otherwise empty reaches of intergalactic space are laced with wispy tendrils of hot gas that connect galaxies. On a more quotidian level, the machine on which I'm typing this document is constructed out of components that are essentially graphs, those components being connected by electrical edges forming an even larger graph, and this one device in turn being connected via various links to millions of other nodes in a huge global graph called the internet. The notion of a graph encompasses all levels of reality, from the subatomic through everyday life and reaching out to the cosmological scale.