图论为什么这么难_图论是什么，为什么要关心？

图论为什么这么难

Graph theory might sound like an intimidating and abstract topic to you, so why should you even spend your time reading an article about it? However, although it might not sound very applicable, there are actually an abundance of useful and important applications of graph theory! In this article, I will try to explain briefly what some of these applications are. In doing so, I will do my best to convince you that having at least some basic knowledge of this topic can be useful in solving some interesting problems you might come across.

图形理论对您来说听起来像是一个令人生畏的抽象话题，那么为什么还要花时间阅读有关它的文章？ 但是，尽管听起来可能不太适用，但实际上图论有很多有用而重要的应用！ 在本文中，我将尝试简要解释其中的一些应用程序。 为此，我将尽力说服您，至少具有该主题的一些基本知识对于解决您可能遇到的一些有趣问题很有用。

In this article, I will through a concrete example show how a route planning/optimization task can be formulated and solved using graph theory. More specifically, I will consider a large warehouse consisting of 1000s of different items in various locations/pickup points. The challenge here is, given a list of items, which path should you follow through the warehouse to pickup all items, but at the same time minimize the total distance traveled? For those of you familiar with these kind of problems, this has quite some resemblance to the famous traveling salesman problem. (A well known problem in combinatorial optimization, important in theoretical computer science and operations research).

在本文中，我将通过一个具体示例展示如何使用图论来制定和解决路线规划/优化任务。 更具体地说，我将考虑一个大型仓库，该仓库由位于不同位置/提货点的数千种不同物品组成。 这里的挑战是，给定一个物品清单，您应该沿着该路径走入仓库以拾取所有物品，但同时要使总行驶距离最小化？ 对于那些熟悉这类问题的人来说，这与著名的旅行推销员问题非常相似。 ( 组合优化中的一个众所周知的问题，在理论计算机科学和运筹学中很重要)。

As you might have realized, the goal of this article is not to give a comprehensive introduction to graph theory (which would be quite a tremendous task). Through a real-world example, I will rather try to convince you that knowing at least some basics of graph theory can prove to be very useful!

您可能已经意识到，本文的目的不是全面介绍图论(这将是一项艰巨的任务)。 通过一个真实的例子，我宁愿说服您，至少了解图论的一些基础知识会证明是非常有用的！

I will start with a brief historical introduction to the field of graph theory, and highlight the importance and the wide range of useful applications in many vastly different fields. Following this more general introduction, I will then shift focus to the warehouse optimization example discussed above.

我将首先对图论领域进行简要的历史介绍，然后重点介绍在许多截然不同的领域中的重要性和广泛的有用应用。 在进行了更一般的介绍之后，我将把重点转移到上面讨论的仓库优化示例。

图论的历史 (The history of Graph Theory)

The basic idea of graphs were first introduced in the 18th century by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, one of the most eminent mathematicians of the 18th century (and of all time, really). His work on the famous “Seven Bridges of Königsberg problem”, are commonly quoted as origin of graph theory.

图的基本概念是由瑞士数学家莱昂哈德·欧拉 ( Leonhard Euler)于18世纪首次提出的， 莱昂哈德·欧拉 ( Leonhard Euler)是18世纪最杰出的数学家之一(实际上是有史以来)。 他关于著名的“ 柯尼斯堡七桥问题 ”的著作通常被认为是图论的起源。

The city of Königsberg in Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia) was set on both sides of the Pregel River, and included two large islands — Kneiphof and Lomse — which were connected to each other, or to the two mainland portions of the city, by seven bridges (as illustrated in the below figure to the left). The problem was to devise a walk through the city that would cross each of those bridges once and only once.

普鲁士的克尼格斯堡市(现为俄罗斯加里宁格勒)位于普雷格尔河的两侧，包括两个大岛，克奈普霍夫和隆塞，它们相互连接，或者与该市的两个大陆部分相连，七个桥(如下图左图所示)。 问题是要设计一条穿过城市的步行路线，一次只能穿过一次这些桥梁。

Euler, recognizing that the relevant constraints were the four bodies of land & the seven bridges, drew out the first known visual representation of a modern graph. A modern graph, as seen in bottom-right image, is represented by a set of points, known as vertices or nodes, connected by a set of lines known as edges.

欧拉认识到相关的约束条件是四块土地和七座桥梁，因此得出了现代图形的第一个已知视觉表示。 一个现代的曲线图，如在右下方图像，是由一组点，公知的为v ertices或节点，由一组被称为边缘线的连接来表示。

Wikipedia 维基百科

This abstraction from a concrete problem concerning a city and bridges etc. to a graph makes the problem tractable mathematically, as this abstract representation includes only the information important for solving the problem. Euler actually proved that this specific problem has no solution. However, the difficulty he faced was the development of a suitable technique of analysis, and of subsequent tests that established this assertion with mathematical rigor. From there, the branch of math known as graph theory lay dormant for decades. In modern times, however, it’s applications are finally exploding.

从有关城市和桥梁等具体问题的抽象到图表，使该问题在数学上易于处理，因为这种抽象表示仅包含解决问题的重要信息。 欧拉实际上证明了这个特定问题没有解决方案。 但是，他面临的困难是