Leonard Euler's Solution to the Konigsberg Bridge Problem (2006)

Leonard Euler's Solution to the Konigsberg Bridge Problem (2006)(maa.org)

61 points by jpelecanos 7 years ago | 12 comments

computator 7 years ago |

When I first saw this problem in elementary school, I went to look at an atlas to see if I could see the bridges (but couldn't because the scale in an atlas was too large). I'm just blown away that today, not only can I find the map but I can look at the aerial view and go on virtual walks through the city and the bridges -- mere seconds after reading about it:

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Kaliningrad,+Kaliningrad+Ob...

I'm wondering what the amazing mapping advance will be 20 years from now. Real time street views of all metropolitan areas?

stevoski 7 years ago | |

I visited Kaliningrad in 2007 and puzzled my hosts by asking them if I could see the famous bridges. They hadn't heard of Euler and the Bridges of Königsberg. I was astonished.

We drove around and saw a couple of what I think were the bridges dating from Euler's time. Others had been destroyed in WW2 and/or replaced with modern, larger bridges.

JadeNB 7 years ago | | |

> Others had been destroyed in WW2 and/or replaced with modern, larger bridges.

I read a while ago that the destruction had actually rendered the bridges problem soluble (that is, that there is a modern Eulerian path); but I don't know if that was true at the time, or is still true.

p1esk 7 years ago | | |

I grew up in Kaliningrad. I haven't heard about this puzzle until I moved to US. I think this is partly because graph theory or topology are considered too advanced to be studied in typical schools and partly because very few residents know much about Konigsberg history. It's kinda like very few Americans know much about American Indian history before Columbus.

marchenko 7 years ago |

Would traveling to the source of the river Pregel and walking around it count as a solution?

lainga 7 years ago | |

Alas! One of the Pregel's tributaries originates in a lake which is itself linked by a canal to the Baltic, forming a loop excluding Konigsberg.

lemoncucumber 7 years ago |

Reading the post title, my first reaction was "Wow, Euler must have been really stumped if it took him until 2006 to solve the problem."

k__ 7 years ago |

I found it kinda funny that most lectures in my Math 101 started with "the little Euler" or "the little Gauss". Like those guys did all of Math on their own when they were children, haha.

captain_perl 7 years ago | |

Well, Euler and Gauss knew all there was to know about mathematics at the time. That consisted of algebra up to quintic equations plus their own inventions.

You'd be unpleasantly surprised if you saw a turn-of-the century-math high school textbook (1900 or so.) Pretty advanced stuff towards the end.

p1esk 7 years ago | | |

That consisted of algebra up to quintic equations plus their own inventions

Well, calculus had been invented before Euler was born, and a lot of advanced math had been developed by the time Gauss appeared (a lot of it by none other than Euler).