The Four Colour Map Theorem
The Most Epic Book of Maths Ever explains how the four-colour map theorem works.
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One of the first was Edgar Pierre Burkart who sent this cute little map with five colours... |
...but it only needed four! |
This one with five colours came from Edison Fu in Hong Kong... |
...but it only needed four! |
Here's a cute triangular map using five colours from Patrick... |
...but it only needed four! |
Here's a very neat five-colour map from Kiron Dutton... |
...but it only needed four! |
Ilan Feron sent us this five-colour map. The letter "m" shape makes things a bit more complicated... |
...but it only needed four! |
"Math Machine" thought that the curious blue stripe made five colours essential... |
...but it only needed four! |
Rishi spent an evening coming up with this five colour map... |
...but it only needed four! |
This very clever five colour map came from Edison. It took us a while ... |
...but it only needed four! |
Marcus from Hong Kong thought this map needed five colours. We LOVE chequer boards so we hoped it would work ... |
...but it only needed four! |
Mahjabeen and Rachel used five colours on this map ... |
...but it only needed four! |
Shen Yan Xi used five colours on this chequer board map with two sneaky extra rectangles ... |
...but it only needed four! |
"The Unknown" used a fifth colour to complete this map ... |
...but it only needed four! |
Notsure731 used a coloured background to make a map using five colours ... |
...but it only needed four! |
This map from Kaitlyn Luo looked like it needed six different colours (or numbers)... |
...but it only needed four! |
Liam's map looks like a target with some sneaky extra channels that make it need five different colours... |
...but it only needed four! |
So if YOU think you've got a map that needs FIVE or more colours...
... and if you're SURE it's impossible then you can tell us at our MAILROOM.
Good luck!