Abstracts for the LGTDS workshop

ICGT Conference , Barcelona, October 2002


Graph transformation from Llull to Brunel

H. Gropp

University Heidelberg
Muehlingstr. 19
69121 Heidelberg
Germany
d12@ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de  

Abstract

This talk will consider the "early days of graphs" starting with the Catalonian scientist Ramon Llull (1232-1316) who was born in Mallorca and worked mainly in Catalonia and Southern France. Llull can be regarded as the first combinatorialist in Christian Europe. The main part will deal with the development at the end of the 19th century, the beginning of modern graph theory. The main mathematicians involved are the Italian Martinetti, the Dutch de Vries, and last but not least the French Georges Brunel (1856-1900) who worked in Bordeaux from 1884 till his early death in 1900. While Martinetti and de Vries worked in the language of configurations (which can be translated into the language of regular graphs), Brunel really presented his research in the language of graphs and prepared the later book of Sainte-Lague of 1926. Unfortunately, Brunel's work is not much known today, although he was a pioneer in early modern graph theory. In a certain sense this talk will connect Barcelona and Bordeaux from the historical point of view of graph theory.