What is a bipartite graph?

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What is a bipartite graph?

A bipartite graph is a type of graph in which the vertices can be divided into two disjoint sets such that no two vertices within the same set are adjacent. In other words, it is a graph that can be colored using only two colors, such that no two adjacent vertices have the same color.

Formally, a graph G = (V, E) is bipartite if its vertex set V can be partitioned into two sets V1 and V2, such that every edge in E connects a vertex from V1 to a vertex from V2. This partitioning of the vertices into two sets is often referred to as a bipartition.

Bipartite graphs have several interesting properties and applications. One of the most common applications is in modeling relationships between two different types of objects. For example, in a social network, we can represent users as vertices and their connections as edges. If we have two types of users, such as students and teachers, a bipartite graph can be used to represent the relationships between them.

Bipartite graphs can also be used to solve various problems, such as the assignment problem, where we need to assign a set of resources to a set of tasks, subject to certain constraints. The bipartite graph can be used to model the compatibility between resources and tasks, and algorithms can be applied to find the optimal assignment.

There are several ways to represent a bipartite graph, such as adjacency matrix or adjacency list. In an adjacency matrix, a bipartite graph can be represented as a 2D matrix where rows represent vertices from one set and columns represent vertices from the other set. The entries in the matrix indicate whether there is an edge between the corresponding vertices.

In summary, a bipartite graph is a graph that can be divided into two disjoint sets of vertices, such that no two vertices within the same set are adjacent. It has various applications in modeling relationships and solving optimization problems.