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If you color both sides of a flat strip of paper, using four colors,
and then twist it into a Moebius strip, there may well be one or more
pairs of touching countries of the same color. That means you will have
to change the color of one of each such pair. This in turn may force
changes to countries touching that one, and so on. It is difficult to
predict the cascade of changes that might be necessary.
That is why it is not obvious that six colors would suffice for any
map, and that there is at least one map where six colors are required.
It is clear that eight would be enough, by just using four colors on
one side and four different colors on the other side of the piece of
paper. It is also clear that there are maps requiring four colors,
since that is true on both sides of the flat piece.
Remember, you only need one example of a map requiring six colors! It
is not necessary for every map to require six colors. The standard
example for a Moebius strip is to divide its surface into thirds
lengthwise with two lines. Then cut the part adjacent to the edge into
sections, each roughly rectangular, and do the same with the center
part. When cut apart and flattened, the resulting map looks like this:
First side:
o---------------------------------------o-------------------o
C|
1
|
2
|A
o---------o---------o---------o---------o---------o---------o
B|
4
|
5
|
6
|
10
|B
o---------o---------o---------o---------o---------o---------o
A|
8
|
9
|C
o-------------------o---------------------------------------o
Flip over top-to-bottom to see the second side:
o-------------------o---------------------------------------o
A|
2
|
3
|C
o---------o---------o---------o---------o---------o---------o
B|
10
|
11
|
12
|
4
|B
o---------o---------o---------o---------o---------o---------o
C|
7
|
8
|A
o---------------------------------------o-------------------o
Here A and B are cuts through the middle of regions numbered 2, 4, 8,
and 10, and C is a border between regions numbered 1 and 3 and between
7 and 9. There are 12 regions all together.
If you inspect this carefully, you will see that each region borders on
five others, so must have a color different from all of theirs. If you
try to color this, you will soon find that six colors are required.
- Doctor Rob, The Math Forum
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/
Date: 04/24/2000 at 08:35:13
From: Bob Sundling
Blue
Red
Green
Red
Green
Orange
Green
Orange
Red
Blue
Orange
Blue
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
borders
borders
borders
borders
borders
borders
borders
borders
borders
1,
1,
1,
8,
4,
5,
2,
2,
3,
3,
4,
2,
9,
5,
6,
6,
3,
4,
o-------------------------------o-------------------------------o
C|
1
|
2
|A
o-------o-------o-------o-------o-------o---------------o-------o
B|
5
|
6
|
4
|B
o-------o-------o-------o-------o-------o-------o
A|
3
|C
o-------------------------------o
The edges labeled A, those labeled B, and those labeled C are to be
joined in pairs, after the traditional half-twist. Remembering that the
colors are the same on both "sides" of each region, you can see that
each region shares a border with all of the other five regions, and so
six colors are required. Thus the statement that six colors are
required for a Moebius strip is correct.
Another way to look at this is in terms of the graph that is the dual
of the map. Pick a point in each region. If two regions share a border,
connect them with an edge. This gives you an undirected graph. Color
the vertices so that no edge has the same color at both ends. This is
equivalent to coloring the regions. The graph of the above example is a
complete graph on six vertices, that is, each vertex is connected to
all five of the others. That implies that six colors are necessary.
I see that the example I gave on the web page in the archives falls
into the same trap that I described above, about painting the different
"sides" of a region different colors. I will change that part of our
archived answer, together with including a discussion of coloring of
regions versus coloring of "sides" of regions.
Thank you for making me examine this situation in great detail. It has
improved my understanding of the problem.
- Doctor Rob, The Math Forum
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/