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A similar theorem states that K 4 and K 2,3 are the forbidden minors for the set of outerplanar graphs. Although the Robertson–Seymour theorem extends these results to arbitrary minor-closed graph families, it is not a complete substitute for these results, because it does not provide an explicit description of the obstruction set for any family.
Robertson, Seymour & Thomas (1993) proved the conjecture for =, also using the four color theorem; their paper with this proof won the 1994 Fulkerson Prize. It follows from their proof that linklessly embeddable graphs , a three-dimensional analogue of planar graphs, have chromatic number at most five. [ 3 ]
If a family F of graphs is closed under taking minors (every minor of a member of F is also in F), then by the Robertson–Seymour theorem F can be characterized as the graphs that do not have any minor in X, where X is a finite set of forbidden minors. [42]
For example, the Robertson–Seymour theorem guarantees that there is a finite list of forbidden minors that characterizes (for example) the set of graphs that can be embedded on a torus; moreover, Robertson and Seymour showed that there is an O(n 3) algorithm for determining whether a graph has a given graph as a minor.
As a partial converse, [34] Seese (1991) proved that, whenever a family of graphs has a decidable MSO 2 satisfiability problem, the family must have bounded treewidth. The proof is based on a theorem of Robertson and Seymour that the families of graphs with unbounded treewidth have arbitrarily large grid minors.
Another result relating the four-color theorem to graph minors is the snark theorem announced by Robertson, Sanders, Seymour, and Thomas, a strengthening of the four-color theorem conjectured by W. T. Tutte and stating that any bridgeless 3-regular graph that requires four colors in an edge coloring must have the Petersen graph as a minor. [15]
Paul D. Seymour FRS (born 26 July 1950) is a British mathematician known for his work in discrete mathematics, especially graph theory.He (with others) was responsible for important progress on regular matroids and totally unimodular matrices, the four colour theorem, linkless embeddings, graph minors and structure, the perfect graph conjecture, the Hadwiger conjecture, claw-free graphs, χ ...
Robertson has won the Fulkerson Prize three times, in 1994 for his work on the Hadwiger conjecture, in 2006 for the Robertson–Seymour theorem, and in 2009 for his proof of the strong perfect graph theorem. [11] He also won the Pólya Prize (SIAM) in 2004, the OSU Distinguished Scholar Award in 1997, and the Waterloo Alumni Achievement Medal ...