Graphs are mathematical objects that are made of dots connected by lines. Graph theory is the branch of mathematics that involves the study of graphs. Graphs are very powerful tools for creating mathematical models of a wide variety of situations. Graph theory has been instrumental for analyzing and solving problems in areas as diverse as computer network design, urban planning, and molecular biology. Graph theory has been used to find the best way to route and schedule airplanes and invent a secret code that no one can crack.
In mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of graphs, mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects from a certain collection. A "graph" in this context refers to a collection of vertices and a collection of edges that connect pairs of vertices. A graph may be undirected, meaning that there is no distinction between the two vertices associated with each edge, or its edges may be directed from one vertex to another; see graph (mathematics) for more detailed definitions and for other variations in the types of graphs that are commonly considered.