Instructor: Arijit Ghosh

Course: Discrete Mathematics (M.Tech CS, 2023-24)

Date: September 13, 2023
Problem Set 3

Question 1. Show that every tree of n vertices, with n ≥ 2, has at least two degree one
vertices.

Question 2. Prove that a tree on n vertices has exactly (n − 1) edges.

Question 3. Prove that if a graph G is connected and has exactly (n − 1) edges then G is
a tree.

Question 4. Show that every graph on at least two vertices contains two vertices of equal
degree.

Question 5. A tree where every vertex has degree 3 or 1 (except the root that has degree
2 and degree zero is the tree is of size 1) is called a binary tree. Prove that a binary tree on
n vertices has at least ⌊n/2⌋ + 1 number of leaves (Hint: induction pivoting at the root).

Question 6. Let G = (V, E) be an undirected graph. Prove that if all its edge weights are
distinct, then it has a unique minimum spanning tree.

Question 7. Let G = (V, E) be a connected graph with t many vertices of add degree where
t > 0. Show that the edge set of G can be written as a disjoint union (in terms of edges) of
t many trails.

Question 8. Prove that a regular bipartite graph of degree at least 2 does not contain a
bridge.

Question 9. Prove that either G or G is connected.

Question 10. Show that every connected graph G = (V, E) on at least two vertices contains
two distinct vertices u and v such that both G[V \ {u}] and G[V \ {v}] are connected.

Question 11. A walk is a sequence of vertices and edges of a graph. An Eulerian walk, in
an undirected graph is a walk that uses each edge exactly once.
Prove that, an undirected connected graph has an Eulerian walk if and only if exactly zero
or two vertices have odd degree.

Question 12. Prove that there is a tournament T with n players and at least n!2−(n−1)
Hamiltonian paths.

Question 13. If G is a graph with n vertices such that any two non-adjacent vertices of G
have degree sum at least n, then prove that G contains a Hamiltonian cycle.

Question 14. Prove that, Qn , n ≥ 2, (hypercube graph of dimension n) contains a Hamil-

tonian cycle.
1
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Question 15. Prove that a graph is bipartite if and only if the graph has no odd cycle.

Question 16. If G is a graph such that all vertices have degree more than 2 then G has a
cycle.

Question 17. If G is a graph such that all the vertices have even degree then prove that G
can be written as a union of edge-disjoint cycles.

Question 18. Let T, T ′ be two spanning trees of a connected graph G. For an edge
e ∈ E(T ) \ E(T ′ ), prove that there exists an edge e′ ∈ E(T ′ ) \ E(T ) such that both T ′ + e − e′
and T + e′ − e are spanning trees of G.

Question 19. Let T1 , . . . , Tk be subtrees of a tree. Assume that each pair (Ti , Tj ) shares a
vertex. Then prove that all the Ti , i ∈ [k] share a common vertex.

Question 20. Show that a graph G is 2-connected if and only if for any three vertices
u, v, w in G there exists a path from u to v that also contains w.

Question 21. Let G be a simple graph with n vertices and (n − 2) edges. Prove that
(a) Either G has an isolated vertex or G has two components that are nontrivial trees.
(b) G is a subgraph of Ḡ, using (a).

Question 22. Construct a graph G = (V, E) on n vertices satisfying the following two
conditions:
( )
• |E| = n−1
2
+ 1, and
• G is not a Hamiltonian graph.

Question 23. Prove that, every n vertex tree other than K1,n−1 is contained in its comple-
ment.

Question 24. Let S be an n element set and A1 , . . . , An be n distinct subsets of S. Prove

that, ∃x ∈ S such that A1 ∪ {x}, . . . , An ∪ {x} are distinct.

Question 25. Let G be a connected graph and e ∈ E(G). Prove that

1) e is a cut-edge if and only if e belongs to every spanning tree.
2) e is a loop if and only if e belongs to no spanning tree.

Question 26. In a party there are 2n participants, where n is a natural number. Some
participants shake hands with other participants. It is known that there do not exist three
participants who have shaken hands with each other. Prove that the total number of hand-
shakes is not more than n2 .

Question 27. A vertex cover in a graph G is a set of vertices that hits every edge. Prove
that the complement of a vertex cover is an independent set and vice versa.

Question 28. In a T20 cricket tournament, n teams participate. Each team plays against
all the other teams exactly once and each match has a winner (no ties). Prove that, one can
order the teams in such a way, say t1 , . . . , tn such that ti defeats ti+1 , ∀i ∈ [n].
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Question 29. A directed graph is called strongly connected if for all vertices of u, v there is
a directed path from u to v and also a directed path from v to u. Prove that every strongly
connected tournament with n ≥ 3 vertices has a directed Hamiltonian cycle.

Question 30. We are given two square sheets of paper with an area 2003. Suppose we
divide each of these papers into 2003 polygons, each of area 1. (The divisions for the two
piece of papers may be distinct.) Then we place the two sheets of paper directly on top
of each other. Show that we can place 2003 pins on the pieces of paper so that all 4006
polygons have been pierced.

Question 31. Consider an 8 × 8 chessboard with the property that on each column and
each row there are exactly n pieces. Prove that we can choose 8 pieces such that no two of
them are in the same row or same column.

Question 32. Define d = (d1 , d2 , . . . , d2k ) by d2i−1 = d2i = i, ∀i ∈ [k]. Prove that d is
graphic.

Question 33. Prove that, any graph G contains a bipartite subgraph G′ such that V (G) =
V (G′ ) and 2|E(G′ )| ≥ |E(G)|.
|V (G)|
Question 34. Prove that, every graph G has a matching of size at least 1+∆(G)
, where
∆(G) is the maximum degree of a vertex in G.

Question 35. Prove or disprove: Every tree has at most one perfect matching.

Question 36. Prove that for every perfect matching M in Qk (hypercube graph of dimension
k) and every coordinate i ∈ [k], there are an even number of edges in M whose endpoints
differ in coordinate i. Using this, count the number of edges in Q3 .

Question 37. For k ≥ 2, prove that Qk has at least 2(2

k−2 )
perfect matchings.

Question 38. The weight of a vertex in Qk is the number of 1s in its label. Prove that for
every perfect matching
( ) in Qk , the number of edges matching words of weight i to words of
weight i + 1 is i , for 0 ≤ i ≤ k − 1.
k−1

Question 39. In a rectangular array of nonnegative reals with m rows and n columns,
each row and each column contains at least one positive element. Moreover, if a row and a
column intersect in a positive element, then the sums of their elements are the same. Prove
that m = n.

Question 40. Prove that if all the vertices of a bipartite graph have the same degree, then
it has a perfect matching.

Question 41. Let S1 , S2 , . . . , Sm be sets. A transversal is an ordered set (s1 , s2 , ..., sm ) such
that each of the si ’s are different and si ∈ Si . Prove that there exists a transversal if and
only if the union of any k sets has at least k elements.

Question 42. Prove the equivalence of Konig’s theorem and Hall’s theorem.
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Question 43. Suppose that a regular deck of 52 playing cards has been dealt into 13 piles
of 4 cards each. Show that there is a way to select one card from each pile, such that you
have one card from every rank (ace, 2, . . . , king).
Question 44. To n people are to be assigned n different houses. Each person ranks the
houses in some order (with no ties). After the assignment is made, it is observed that every
other assignment assigns at least one person to a house that person ranked lower than in the
given assignment. Prove that at least one person received his/her top choice in the given
assignment.
Question 45. An m × n Latin rectangle is an m × n matrix M = (mij ) whose entries are
integers and satisfy the following two conditions:
• 1 ≤ mij ≤ n.
• No two entries in any row or in any column are equal. Note that this implies that
m ≤ n.
If m = n, then the Latin rectangle is a Latin square. Let M be an m × n Latin rectangle
with m < n. Then M can be extended to a Latin square by the addition of n − m new rows.
Question 46. Let S = {1, 2, . . . , kn}, and suppose A1 , . . . , An and B1 , . . . , Bn are both
partitions of S into n sets of size k. Then there exists a set T of size n such that every
intersection T ∩ Ai and T ∩ Bi has cardinality exactly 1.
Question 47. (Gale-Shapley stable marriage protocol) Suppose there are equal numbers
of men and women, and each person ranks the opposite group according to preference. A
series of rounds ensue. In each round:
1) Every currently-not-engaged man simultaneously proposes to the top choice among
those remaining on his list.
2) Then each woman compares her incoming proposals to the person she is currently
engaged to. She selects the best of these (possibly dumping her current engagement),
and is now engaged to the new person.
3) All rejected men permanently remove the corresponding women from their list.
Show that when this process terminates, everybody has gotten married. Next, show that
the resulting marriage is stable.
Question 48. Got a graph G let ν(G) and τ (G) denote the size of the maximum matching
and the size of the smallest vertex cover in G. Show that ν(G) ≤ τ (G) ≤ 2ν(G).
Question 49. Using the above result design a 2-factor approximation algorithm for com-
puting vertex cover in a graph.
Question 50. Show that König Theorem and Dilworth’s Thoorem are equivalent.
Question 51. Show that in a connected graph any two paths of maximum length share at
least one vertex.