Hamiltonian paths and

circuits

Theicosian game

About the time the American Civil War began, the mathematician Sir
WilliamHamiltoninvented theicosian game. One version of this
game was call the 'A Voyage Round the World:' a solid dodecahedron
had a peg at each vertex--these vertices represented twenty important
cities.

The objective of the game was to find a path around the world (by
wrapping a string around the pegs and following the edges) which went
through each city once and ended where it began.

Hamiltonian path and circuit

If we flatten the dodecahedron (the pegs/cities become vertices and the

edges stay edges) we get this simple graph. Now the object of the
game is to find a circuit which passes through each vertex exactly
once--such a circuit is called a Hamiltonian circuit.

AHamiltonian pathis a path which passes through each vertex of the

graph exactly once--with the exception that it may start and stop at the
same vertex. If the path does start and stop at the same vertex, then it
is aHamiltonian Circuit.

Quiz

Which of the following graph(s) has a Hamiltonian path or circuit?

Travelling salesman problems

Consider each of the following:

A traveling salesman needs to visit fifteen cities, but wants to visit each
one only once.

The electric company needs to design a route for its meter readers.

A hunter has to check each of her traps each morning.

A vendor needs to remove the coins from each of his vending machines.

Each of these problems gives us a graph where the vertices are the
objects to be 'visited' (cities, meters, traps or vending machines); and the
edges are the roads (or paths) between them. This whole class of
problems are calledTraveling Salesman Problems.

Two theorems

Unfortunately, there is no simple theorem for determining whether or

not a given graph has a Hamiltonian path or circuit. We usually have to
just find one. There are however many theorems such as the following
that help us in certain special situation:

Diracs Theorem

If a connected graph hasnvertices, wheren>2 and each vertex has

degree at leastn/2, then the graph has a Hamiltonian circuit.

Theorem

If a connected graph has more than two vertices, and one vertex has
degree one, then it does not have a Hamiltonian circuit.