Applications of Graphs in Chemistry and Physics

Description

It has been said that modern molecular theory is founded on essentially graph-like models located in some appropriate embedding space. The idea may be extended to physical theory, and it is this that provides the raison d'etre for this collection of papers. Today there is almost no branch of chemistry, including its more recent relatives in polymer science and biology, that is not enriched by (or enriching) the mathematical theory of graphs. The impact of graph-theoretical thinking in physics has, with some notable exceptions, developed more slowly. In 1847, G.R. Kirchoff founded the theory of electrical networks as a graph-theoretical structure, and as a result also made significant contributions to the mathematics of graph theory. This tradition has continued into the newer sciences such as telecommunications, computer science and information science.