Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!wasatch!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!riley
From: riley@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Daniel S. Riley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Clicking on Irregular Shapes (and the four color problem)
Message-ID: <8325@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: 5 Jul 89 18:00:17 GMT
References: <42700015@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <6124@microsoft.UUCP> <4007@amiga.UUCP> <18678@louie.udel.EDU> <7172@cbmvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: riley@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Daniel S. Riley)
Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Lines: 12

[I'm catching up on old articles.  Just when you thought they were dead...]

In article <18678@louie.udel.EDU> new@udel.EDU (Darren New) writes:
>Really?  The four-color proof for flat surfaces is trivial?
>	     That's certainly news to me!

Well, it's been done.  However, it really isn't very useful for the problem
at hand.  Most geographical maps are *not* maps in the mathematical sense.
For instance, you can't color a map of the US with four colors.

-Dan Riley (riley@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu, cornell!batcomputer!riley)
-Wilson Lab, Cornell U.