Ramsey theory, named after the British mathematician and philosopher Frank P. Ramsey, is a branch of the mathematical field of combinatorics that focuses on the appearance of order in a substructure given a structure of a known size. Problems in Ramsey theory typically ask a question of the form: "how big must some structure be to guarantee that a particular property holds?" [1]
A typical result in Ramsey theory starts with some mathematical structure that is then cut into pieces. How big must the original structure be in order to ensure that at least one of the pieces has a given interesting property? This idea can be defined as partition regularity.
For example, consider a complete graph of order n; that is, there are n vertices and each vertex is connected to every other vertex by an edge. A complete graph of order 3 is called a triangle. Now colour each edge either red or blue. How large must n be in order to ensure that there is either a blue triangle or a red triangle? It turns out that the answer is 6. See the article on Ramsey's theorem for a rigorous proof.
Another way to express this result is as follows: at any party with at least six people, there are three people who are all either mutual acquaintances (each one knows the other two) or mutual strangers (none of them knows either of the other two). See theorem on friends and strangers.
This also is a special case of Ramsey's theorem, which says that for any given integer c, any given integers n1,...,nc, there is a number, R(n1,...,nc), such that if the edges of a complete graph of order R(n1,...,nc) are coloured with c different colours, then for some i between 1 and c, it must contain a complete subgraph of order ni whose edges are all colour i. The special case above has c = 2 and n1 = n2 = 3.
Two key theorems of Ramsey theory are:
A theorem similar to van der Waerden's theorem is Schur's theorem : for any given c there is a number N such that if the numbers 1, 2, ..., N are coloured with c different colours, then there must be a pair of integers x, y such that x, y, and x+y are all the same colour. Many generalizations of this theorem exist, including Rado's theorem, Rado–Folkman–Sanders theorem, Hindman's theorem, and the Milliken–Taylor theorem. A classic reference for these and many other results in Ramsey theory is Graham, Rothschild, Spencer and Solymosi, updated and expanded in 2015 to its first new edition in 25 years. [2]
Results in Ramsey theory typically have two primary characteristics. Firstly, they are unconstructive: they may show that some structure exists, but they give no process for finding this structure (other than brute-force search). For instance, the pigeonhole principle is of this form. Secondly, while Ramsey theory results do say that sufficiently large objects must necessarily contain a given structure, often the proof of these results requires these objects to be enormously large – bounds that grow exponentially, or even as fast as the Ackermann function are not uncommon. In some small niche cases, upper and lower bounds are improved, but not in general. In many cases these bounds are artifacts of the proof, and it is not known whether they can be substantially improved. In other cases it is known that any bound must be extraordinarily large, sometimes even greater than any primitive recursive function; see the Paris–Harrington theorem for an example. Graham's number, one of the largest numbers ever used in serious mathematical proof, is an upper bound for a problem related to Ramsey theory. Another large example is the Boolean Pythagorean triples problem. [3]
Theorems in Ramsey theory are generally one of the following two types. Many such theorems, which are modeled after Ramsey's theorem itself, assert that in every partition of a large structured object, one of the classes necessarily contains its own structured object, but gives no information about which class this is. In other cases, the reason behind a Ramsey-type result is that the largest partition class always contains the desired substructure. The results of this latter kind are called either density results or Turán-type result, after Turán's theorem. Notable examples include Szemerédi's theorem, which is such a strengthening of van der Waerden's theorem, and the density version of the Hales-Jewett theorem. [4]
In mathematics, the four color theorem, or the four color map theorem, states that no more than four colors are required to color the regions of any map so that no two adjacent regions have the same color. Adjacent means that two regions share a common boundary of non-zero length. It was the first major theorem to be proved using a computer. Initially, this proof was not accepted by all mathematicians because the computer-assisted proof was infeasible for a human to check by hand. The proof has gained wide acceptance since then, although some doubts remain.
Van der Waerden's theorem is a theorem in the branch of mathematics called Ramsey theory. Van der Waerden's theorem states that for any given positive integers r and k, there is some number N such that if the integers {1, 2, ..., N} are colored, each with one of r different colors, then there are at least k integers in arithmetic progression whose elements are of the same color. The least such N is the Van der Waerden number W(r, k), named after the Dutch mathematician B. L. van der Waerden.
In mathematics, the probabilistic method is a nonconstructive method, primarily used in combinatorics and pioneered by Paul Erdős, for proving the existence of a prescribed kind of mathematical object. It works by showing that if one randomly chooses objects from a specified class, the probability that the result is of the prescribed kind is strictly greater than zero. Although the proof uses probability, the final conclusion is determined for certain, without any possible error.
In combinatorics, Ramsey's theorem, in one of its graph-theoretic forms, states that one will find monochromatic cliques in any edge labelling (with colours) of a sufficiently large complete graph. To demonstrate the theorem for two colours (say, blue and red), let r and s be any two positive integers. Ramsey's theorem states that there exists a least positive integer R(r, s) for which every blue-red edge colouring of the complete graph on R(r, s) vertices contains a blue clique on r vertices or a red clique on s vertices. (Here R(r, s) signifies an integer that depends on both r and s.)
Combinatorics is a branch of mathematics concerning the study of finite or countable discrete structures.
In arithmetic combinatorics, Szemerédi's theorem is a result concerning arithmetic progressions in subsets of the integers. In 1936, Erdős and Turán conjectured that every set of integers A with positive natural density contains a k-term arithmetic progression for every k. Endre Szemerédi proved the conjecture in 1975.
In mathematics, the Hales–Jewett theorem is a fundamental combinatorial result of Ramsey theory named after Alfred W. Hales and Robert I. Jewett, concerning the degree to which high-dimensional objects must necessarily exhibit some combinatorial structure; it is impossible for such objects to be "completely random".
The Fulkerson Prize for outstanding papers in the area of discrete mathematics is sponsored jointly by the Mathematical Optimization Society (MOS) and the American Mathematical Society (AMS). Up to three awards of $1,500 each are presented at each (triennial) International Symposium of the MOS. Originally, the prizes were paid out of a memorial fund administered by the AMS that was established by friends of the late Delbert Ray Fulkerson to encourage mathematical excellence in the fields of research exemplified by his work. The prizes are now funded by an endowment administered by MPS.
Ben Joseph Green FRS is a British mathematician, specialising in combinatorics and number theory. He is the Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Oxford.
The theorem on friends and strangers is a mathematical theorem in an area of mathematics called Ramsey theory.
In mathematics, a Kempe chain is a device used mainly in the study of the four colour theorem. Intuitively, it is a connected chain of vertices on a graph with alternating colours.
Van der Waerden's theorem states that for any positive integers r and k there exists a positive integer N such that if the integers {1, 2, ..., N} are colored, each with one of r different colors, then there are at least k integers in arithmetic progression all of the same color. The smallest such N is the van der Waerden numberW(r, k).
The Erdős–Anning theorem states that, whenever an infinite number of points in the plane all have integer distances, the points lie on a straight line. The same result holds in higher dimensional Euclidean spaces. The theorem cannot be strengthened to give a finite bound on the number of points: there exist arbitrarily large finite sets of points that are not on a line and have integer distances.
Ergodic Ramsey theory is a branch of mathematics where problems motivated by additive combinatorics are proven using ergodic theory.
In mathematics, arithmetic combinatorics is a field in the intersection of number theory, combinatorics, ergodic theory and harmonic analysis.
József Solymosi is a Hungarian-Canadian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at the University of British Columbia. His main research interests are arithmetic combinatorics, discrete geometry, graph theory, and combinatorial number theory.
In mathematics, structural Ramsey theory is a categorical generalisation of Ramsey theory, rooted in the idea that many important results of Ramsey theory have "similar" logical structures. The key observation is noting that these Ramsey-type theorems can be expressed as the assertion that a certain category has the Ramsey property.
The Mathematical Coloring Book: Mathematics of Coloring and the Colorful Life of Its Creators is a book on graph coloring, Ramsey theory, and the history of development of these areas, concentrating in particular on the Hadwiger–Nelson problem and on the biography of Bartel Leendert van der Waerden. It was written by Alexander Soifer and published by Springer-Verlag in 2009 (ISBN 978-0-387-74640-1).
Aaron Robertson is an American mathematician who specializes in Ramsey theory. He is a professor at Colgate University.