Study Guide 
Tucker: Applied Combinatorics 
§4.2 Minimal Spanning Trees
Dr. Lee Eimers

Introduction: A spanning tree is a subgraph that is a tree and visits every vertex of the original graph.  A minimal spanning tree is a spanning tree whose sum of edge lengths (costs) is the smallest possible.


Concepts and Vocabulary:
The following boldfaced (or italic) terms and phrases introduced in this section.
Kruskal's Algorithm  Minimal spanning tree
Prim's Algorithm 
Points of Interest:

1.   Be aware that Kruskal's Algorithm and Prim's Algorithm will not always yield the same minimal spanning tree, but they will usually have many edges in common.  Also, the fact that they are both minimal spanning trees guarantees that they will have the same total length, even if the trees are different.


Homework Assignment:
Do to hand in: #1,3,5,6,12

 Thought for the Day
Make the most of the best and the least of the worst.
--Robert Louis Stevenson--
Ninety percent of this game is half mental.
Yogi Berra