Graph Theory in Drama
Structural engineers use graph theory to represent the forces in a truss. Software engineers use graph theory to understand relationships between people, such as those in social networks like Facebook.
Students use graph theory to create social graphs for their own social networks and apply what learn to create a graph representing the social dynamics found in a dramatic text. Students then derive meaning based on what they know about the text from the graphs they created. Students learn graph theory vocabulary, as well as engineering applications of graph theory.
Graph theory is the study of graphs and is applicable in computer science, mathematics and engineering. A graph is a mathematical structure used to model relationships between the objects in a set of objects. Graphs in this context have vertices or "nodes" and a group of edges, which connect pairs of vertices.
In computer science, software engineers use graphs to represent communication networks, data organization, computational devices, the flow of computation and more. One example of graph theory used by computer/software engineers is the multi-hop cooperative relay communication networks in which the network is comprised of a base station(s) and relay stations (nodes) that communicate information to mobile communication devices. Another is a social network that software engineers are exploiting on sites like Facebook to market products to consumers. Software engineers can use graph theory to represent the structure of a website. The vertices are the available web pages and the edges are the connections (directional) between pages.
In the design of integrated circuits (ICs) for electronic devices, electrical engineers and computer electronic engineers also employ graph theory. ICs have complex layered microcircuits that can be represented as nodes interconnected by lines or arcs. By using graph theory, engineers can optimize the density of components and minimize the connections to optimize processing speed and electrical efficiency.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Explain the basic concepts of graph theory.
- Apply graph theory to the analysis of a network.
- Explore the practical concepts of graph theory through questioning.