Algebraic Graph Theory

Graph models are extremely useful for almost all applications and applicators as they play an important role as structuring tools. They allow to model net structures like roads, computers, telephones instances of abstract data structures like lists, stacks, trees and functional or object oriented programming. In turn, graphs are models for mathematical objects, like categories and functors. This highly self-contained book about algebraic graph theory is written with a view to keep the lively and unconventional atmosphere of a spoken text to communicate the enthusiasm the author feels about this subject. The focus is on homomorphisms and endomorphisms, matrices and eigenvalues. It ends with a challenging chapter on the topological question of embeddability of Cayley graphs on surfaces.