Graffiti (program)

Graffiti is a computer program which makes conjectures in various subfields of mathematics (particularly graph theory) and chemistry, but can be adapted to other fields.

It was written by Siemion Fajtlowicz at the University of Houston.

Commentary

Simon Colton

From "Look at that figure" by Simon Colton (January 26, 2001):

Siemion Fajtlowicz's Graffiti program has worked in graph theory for more than a decade, and there are more than 60 papers by influential mathematicians about its theorems.

Gina Colata

From "IDEAS & TRENDS; Mathematicians Meet Computerized Ideas" by Gina Kolata @ NY Times:

[Fajtlowicz] ... chose four criteria. A conjecture would have to be surprising, judged by how different it was from conjectures the computer had made before. It could not be a logical consequence of another conjecture. It should not be overly specific. And if a conjecture compared two quantities, the quantities should be close in size. Using these standards, he was able to eliminate all but 20 to 50 of the proposals produced by a run of the program.

See also

• Algorithmic art
• Conjecture
• "Look at that figure"

External links

• Graffiti (program) @ Wikipedia.org (By GINA KOLATA, Published: June 18, 1989)
• IDEAS & TRENDS; Mathematicians Meet Computerized Ideas @ nytimes.com (By GINA KOLATA, Published: June 18, 1989)
• Look at that figure by Simon Colton