Euler (1707-1782) became the father of Graph Theory as well as

Topology. Graph theory is considered to have begun in 1736 with the publication of
Euler’s solution of konigsberg Bridge Problem.

The Graph theory is one of the few field of mathematics with a definite birth
date by Ore. Kirchoff’s investigations of electric networks led to his development of
the basic concepts and theorems concerning trees in graphs, while Cayley considered
trees arising from the enumeration of organic chemical isomers.

Another puzzle approach to graphs was proposed by Hamilton. After this,

the celebrated four colour conjecture came into prominence and has been notorious
ever since. In the present century, there have already been a great many rediscoveries
of Graph theory.

1.3 History of Graph Theory

As mentioned earlier, Graph theory was born in 1736 with Euler’s paper in
which he solved the konigsberg bridge problem. For the next 100 years nothing was
more done in this field.

About the time of Kirchoff and Cayley, two other milestones in Graph
theory were laid. One was the four colour conjecture, which states that four colour are
sufficient for colouring any map on a plane such that the countries with common
boundaries have different colours. It is believed that A.F. Mobius (1740-1868) first
presented the four colour problem in one of his lectures in 1840.

About 10 years later, De Morgan (1806-1871) discussed this problem with

his fellow mathematicians in London. De Morgan’s letter was the first authenticated
reference to the four colour problem. The problem become very well known after
Cayley published it in 1879 in the first volume of the Proceedings of the Royal
Geographic Society. To this day, the four colour problem has stimulated an enormous
amount of research in the field of Graph Theory.

The other milestone is due to Sir W.R. Hamilton (1805-1865). In the year
1859 he invented a puzzle and sold it for 25 guineas to a game manufacturer in
Dublin. The puzzle consist of wooden, regular dodecahedron.

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 The corners were marked with the names of 20 important cities like London,
Newyork, Delhi, Paris and so on. The object in the puzzle was to find a route along
the edges of the dodecahedron, passing through each of the 20 cities exactly one.

Although the solution of this specific problem is easy to obtain, to date no

one has found a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of such a route
(called Hamilton circuit) in an arbitary graph.

The fertile period was followed by half a century of relative inactivity, then
a resurgence of intrest in graphs started during the 1920’s. One of the pioneers in this
period was D. Konig. He organised the work of other, mathematicians and his own
and wrote the first book on the subject, which was published in 1936.

The past 30 years has been a period of intense activity in graph theory both
pure and applied. Among the current leaders in the field are Claude Berge, Oystein
Ore, Paul Erdos, William Tutte and Frand Harary.

1.4 Graph and its Applications

1.4.1 Graph

Graph theory is the study of graphs, mathematical structures used to model

pairwise relations between objects from a certain collection. A graph in this context
refers to a collection of edges that connect pairs of vertices.

A Graph may be undirected, meaning that there is no distinction between the

two vertices associated with each edge, or its edges may be directed from one vertex
to another. The points of a graph are most commonly known as graph vertices, but
may also be called nodes or simply points. Similarly, the lines connecting the vertices
of a graph are most commonly known as graph edges, but may also be called arcs or
lines.

1.4.2 Applications

Graphs are among the most ubiquitous models of both natural and human
made structures. They can be used to model many types of relations and process
dynamics in physical, biological and social systems. Many problems of practical
interest can be represented by graphs.

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 In Mathematics, graph are useful in geometry and certain parts of Topology
and Operation Research. In Computer Science, graphs are used to represent networks
of communication, data organization, computational devices, the flow of computation
etc.....

Graph Algorithms are used to solve the graph theoretical concepts which in
turn used to solve the corresponding computer science application problems. Graph
theoretic methods, invarious forms, have proven particularly useful in linguistics,
since natural language often lends itself well to discrete structure.

Graph theory is also used to study molecules in Chemistry and Physics.

Example : Franzblau’s shortest – path (SP) rings. In Chemistry a graph makes a
natural model for a molecule, where vertices represent atoms and edge bonds. This
approach is especially used in computer processing of molecular structures.

Graph theory is also widely used in Sociology as a way, for example, to

measure actors, prestige, notably through the use of social network analysis software.

Graph theory is useful in Biology where a vertex can represent regions

where certain species exist and the edges represent migration paths or movement
between the regions.

1.5 Labeling in Graphs

The study of graph labeling has become a major subfield of graph theory. A
graph labelling is an assignment of integers to the vertices or edges or both, subject to
certain conditions. Graph labeling was first introduced in the late 1960’s.

Given a graph G = ( V,E ), a vertex labeling is a function of V to a set of

labels. A graph with such a function defined is called a vertex – labeled graph.
Likewise, an edge labeling is a function of E to a set of labels. In this case, the graph
is called an edge – labeled graph.

Generally Graph labelling traces its origin to labelling presented by Alex

Rosa in his paper published in 1967. In this paper Rosa defined a β- valuation of a
graph G with q edges as an injection from the vertices of G to the set { 0, 1, 2, ......, q}

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such that when each edge xy is assigned that labels | f (x) –f (y) | the resulting edge
labels are distinct.

The distance – two labelling problem of a graphs was proposed by Griggs and
Roberts in 1988 and it is a variation of the frequency assignment problem introduced
by Hale. The existence of graphs for which a special set of integer value are assigned
to its nodes or edges or both according to some given criteria has been investigated
since middle of the last century.

It is still getting embellished due to increasing number of application driven

concepts. Graph labeling has often been motivated by its utility to various applied
fields and its intrinsic mathematical interest.

Graph labelling has often been motivated by practical considerations such as

chemical isomers, but they are also of interest in their own right due to their abstract
mathematical properties arising from structural consideration of the underlying
graphs.

1.6 Applications of Labeling

Graph labelling is used in many applications like coding theory, x-ray

crystallography, radar, astronomy, circuit design, communication network addressing,
data base management, channel assignment process in communication networks.

Also the concept of graph labelling can be applied to network security,

network addressing, channel assignment process, social networks.

Labeled graphs are also useful in designing of good radar type codes, synch-
set codes, missile guidance codes and convolution codes with optimal autocorrelation
properties. They facilitate the optimal non standard encoding of integers.

The qualitative labeling of graph elements has inspired research in diverse

field of human enquiry such as conflict resolution in social phychology, electrical
circuit theory and energy crisis.

Whereas quantitative labeling of the graphs has led to quite intricate fields of
applications such as coding theory problems, including the design of good radar

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location codes, synch-set codes, missile guidance codes and convolution codes with
optimal auto correlation properties.

Besides, their practical application as indicated above their theoretical

applications too are numerous not only in the theory of graphs but also in other areas
of mathematics such as Combinatorial Number Theory. Linear Algebra and Group
Theory admitting a given type of labeling. Labeled graphs are also use to construct
the polygons of same internal angles and distinct sides.

1.7 Types of Labeling

ρ-labeling :

Let G be a graph with q edges and ρ be an injection from V(G) into a subset S
of elements of the additive group Z2q+1. The length of an edge e with end vertices X
and Y is defined as 1(e) = min {ρ(x) – ρ(y) , ρ(y) – ρ(x)}. The injection ρ is called rosy
labelling (also labeling or valuation) if the set of all lengths of the q edges is equal to
(1, 2, ......., q).

β-Labeling :

Let G be a graph with q edges and β be a rosy labeling of G. If the set of labels
of vertices of G is the subset of the set {0, 1, 2, ......., q}, then β is called a graceful
labeling or β-valuation or β-labeling.

α-labeling :

Let G be a graph with q edges and α be a graceful labelling of G. If there is a

constant α0 such that for every two vertices x,y of G with α(x) < α(y) it holds that
α(x)≤ α(y), then α is called an α-labeling or α-valuation.

Graceful labeling :

Let G = (V, E) be a simple graph with p vertices and q edges. An injective

function f : V(G) →{0, 1, 2, ......, q} is said to be graceful labeling of a graph G if the
induced edge labeling f *(u,v) = | f (u) – f (v) | is a bijection onto the set (1,2,..., q). A
simple graph G is said to be a graceful graph if G has a graceful labeling.

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Square sum labeling :

Let G = (V,E) be a (p,q) graph and let f : V(G) → {0, 1, 2, ...., p-1} be a
bijection. We define f * on E(G) by f *(uv) = [ f(u)]2 + [f(v)]2. If f *
is injective on
E(G) , Then f is called a Square sum labeling. The graph G is said to be a Square
sum graph if G admits a square sum labeling.

Magic labelling :

Let G be a graph with q edges . The graph G is magic if the edges of G can be
labeled by the numbers 1, 2, 3, ......., q so that the sum of labels of all the edges with
any vertex is the same.

Prime labeling :

A simple graph G = (V,E) is said to have a prime labelling if it vertices are

labeled with distinct integers from {1, 2, ......, |v|} such that for each edge xy, the
labels assigned to x and y are relatively prime. A graph with prime labeling defined on
it is called a Prime graph or Simple graph.

Harmonious labeling :

A function f is a harmonious labeling of a graph G with q edges if f is an

injection from the vertices of G to the group of integers modulo q such that each edge
uv is assigned the labels (f(u) + f(v))(mod q), the resulting labels are distinct.

1.8 Introduction of Graceful labeling

Suppose we want to decompose a complete graph G into trees, all of them

isomorphic between themselves. In other words, we want to partition the edges of G
such that the subgraph induced by each set of edges of the partition is isomorphic to a
given tree T. Ringel Conjectured that, for any tree T with n vertices, the complete
graph K2n-1 can be decomposed into 2n-1 trees isomorphic to T. Rosa introduced
graceful labeling in 1966, and back then , he called it β-labeling.

The term “graceful” was introduced by Golumb in 1972 . Rosa showed that if
every tree is graceful, then Ringel Conjecture holds. Since then, researchers have

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been trying to prove Ringel’s Conjecture through the graceful tree conjecture, which
claims that every tree is graceful

However, graceful graphs gained their own merit of study over the years.
David S. Johnson , in his NP-Completeness column of 1983, includes the decision
problem of graceful labeling as the “Open Problem of the Month”.

Moreover, there is the International Workshop on Graph Labeling in which

graceful labeling is one of the main themes, and a complete survey on the subject
from Gallian that is constantly updated.