The colors of maps <pics attached> got me thinking as to why the colors are shown that way and that lead me to the ‘Four Color Theorem’ and that is what we will be talking about in our story #52.

The four colour theorem was the first important theorem to be established by a computer-assisted proof that was highly difficult for a person to manually verify.

According to the four-color theorem, every map in a plane may be coloured using four colours in a way that prevents regions with shared boundaries (aside from a single point) from having the same colour. 

In honour of F. Guthrie, who proposed the theorem for the first time in 1852, this issue is also frequently referred to as Guthrie's problem. The conjecture was then communicated to de Morgan and thence into the general community. Cayley published the initial paper on the theory in 1878.

Despite the motivation from coloring political maps of countries, the theorem is not of particular interest to cartographers.

Although there are still some sceptics (thanks to some fallicious proofs), the theorem has acquired widespread acceptance.

Sources:

<1> Four Color Theorem - article by Wolfram MathWorld.

<2> Four Color Theorem - Post by Fermat’s Library.

<3> Google Images.

#math #mathstories #story52 #four #color #theorem

Also, hey, 52nd story - 1 story/week for a year uh?!

Didn't expect to continue this series for so long, but, can't say NO to #math right?! 😉