MAT 110 CC: NETWORKS & THEIR APPLCTNS

How do companies like UPS and FedEx come up with efficient routes for their delivery trucks? How do sports conferences like the NFL create their game schedule each season? The course focuses on the use of networks, which are more generally called graphs, as a modeling tool to answer questions like these from diverse fields. Applications of graphs are everywhere: solving puzzles and games, visualizing molecules, routing snowplows, scheduling courses, sequencing traffic lights, analyzing food webs, representing data in a computer, and describing interpersonal relationships. By studying historical and contemporary puzzles and problems, students will be introduced to the origins and fundamental concepts of graph theory with the goal of then utilizing their knowledge of graphs to solve real-world problems in the practical applications that emerge.