Andrew Wagner, Univerity of Ottawa
Dark Bridges Over Königsberg

Many graph theorists are familiar with the Bridges of Königsberg problem and how it relates to the genesis of graph theory. Fewer, however, have heard the gritty details of how Euler's solution almost never manifested. In this talk, we will explore the fascinating history of the problem and how it relates to hypergraphs. This will set the scene for the speaker's primary work of establishing the existence of Euler tours -- and another eulerian type of structure, called Euler families -- in so-called design hypergraphs. We will also discuss techniques employing small edge cuts that can be used to recursively search for Euler tours in hypergraphs.