Graph Theoretic Models

I feel particularly honored by this invitation to deliver the opening address at the annual meeting of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science because I am not a computer scientist. Thus I must attribute my presence here to the importance of the field of graph theory as a useful mathematical model in your field. Similarly I was astounded by the invitation to give the opening lecture at the Bremen Conference on Chemistry in June 1978. At that meeting, I found empirically that graph theoretic models are quite useful in theoretical chemistry. For I presented eight topics in graph theory to the chemists on Monday morning, and during the week, for each of these topics at least one chemist informed me that his research involved that part of graph theory. It appears likely that a similar phenomenon can be expected in computer science. As it is well-known that computer science involves graph theoretic algorithms, I shall begin with an accounting of my personal adventures and misadventures in that field.