New approach to vertex connectivity could maximize networks’ bandwidth
Computer scientists are constantly searching for ways to squeeze ever more bandwidth from communications networks.Now a new approach to understanding a basic concept in graph theory, known as “vertex connectivity,” could ultimately lead to communications protocols — the rules that govern how digital messages are exchanged — that coax as much bandwidth as possible from networks.Graph theory plays a central role in mathematics and computer science, and is used to describe the relationship between different objects. Each graph consists of a number of nodes, or vertices, which represent the objects, and connecting lines between them, known as edges, which signify the relationships between them. A communications network, for example, can be represented as a graph with each node in the network being one vertex, and a connection between two nodes depicted as an edge.One of the fundamental concepts within graph theory is connectivity, which has two variants: edge connectivity and...