Tutte 100th Colloquium - James Oxley

Title: The Mathematical Contributions of W.T. Tutte

Abstract:

"If a theorem about graphs can be expressed in terms of edges and circuits only it probably exemplifies a more general theorem about matroids.'' Bill Tutte wrote these words in a commentary on his 1966 paper Connectivity in matroids. Indeed, he went on to write that a "belief in this general principle'' led him to seek a matroid generalization of his 1961 theorem that distinguishes the special role that wheels play among 3-connected graphs. Because of the impossibility of doing justice to all of Bill's mathematical contributions in a single colloquium, this talk will concentrate on those contributions that lie on the interface between graph theory and matroid theory.