Craig Larson Assistant Professor Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics Virginia Commonwealth University teaching my papers and notes miscellany VCU Discrete Math Seminar The Independence Number Project VCU Precalculus Web (Math 151)
email: clarson@vcu.edu

My office is 4106 Harris Hall. In Spring 2013 I will be doing research at Ghent University, Belgium. I will still be accessible by email, and back teaching at VCU in the Fall.

• Resources for Graph Theory:
  • House of Graphs, is a place to go to find information about a specific graph or class of graphs, and to add graphs that might be of interest to others.
  • Grinvin is a free computer program that can be used to calculate invariants, generate graphs, and otherwise explore.
  • Groups & Graphs is another free computer program for graph theory exploration.
  • Good free books online
    • Diestel's Graph Theory (grad).
    • Bondy and Murty's Graph Theory with Applications (undergrad).
    • Wilf's Algorithms and Complexity (undergrad).

• Other Stuff for Current Students:

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  • When will I use math?
  • Why do math?
  • The American Mathematical Society (AMS) has a web page for news for student math majors. You can also sign up for a very useful (free) email bulletin there.

• VCU Math Open-Source Texts Project: Getting High Quality Inexpensive Texts to our Students
  • Richard Hammack, Book of Proof. pdf. order.
  • Jim Hefferon, Linear Algebra, pdf. order.
  • Thomas Judson, Abstract Algebra. pdf. order.
  • John Cain & Angela Reynolds, Ordinary Differential Equations. pdf. order.
  • Judith Roitman, Modern Set Theory. pdf. order.

• Resources for Master's students:
  • VCU Stuff & Forms:
    • Application to Graduate. Do this at the beginning of your last semester.
    • Application to Defend Thesis. Must be done prior to defending your thesis.
    • Thesis Approval Signature Form. Bring this with you to your thesis defense.
    • VCU Digital Archive. After your thesis is approved it must be uploaded to this archive.

  • Useful LaTeX links:
    • A VCU Math thesis template and required files (the "cls" file must be in the directory where you compile your "tex" file).
    • TeXshop. A very good (free) TeX editor and compiler for Mac.
    • TeXnicCenter. A very good (free) TeX editor for Windows. (You still need MikTeX as the compiling "engine").
    • MikTeX. The TeX compiler for Windows users (free).
    • The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX. A guide to LaTeX basics.
    • Tikz Manual. A guide for making pictures directly in your TeX code.
    • DeTeXify. Draw a math symbol and get the LaTeX code. You can also find Iphone and Android apps.
    • LyX A freeware WYSIWYG LaTeX editor.

• Thesis Students
  • Michelle Grigsby, M.S., ``Independence and Horizontal Edges'', December 2011.
  • Andrew Bristow, M.S., ``Independence Number is NP-Complete'', August 2011.
  • William Willis, M.S., ``Bounds for the Independence Number of a Graph'', August 2011.
  • Taylor Short, M.S., ``KE Theory and the Number of Vertices Belonging to all Maximum Independent Sets of a Graph'', February 2011.
  • Nisreen Bukhary, M.S., ``Domination in Benzenoids'', May 2010.

20. C. E. Larson and N. Van Cleemput, Forcing Independence, submitted.

19. G. Brinkmann, C. E. Larson, J. Souffriaua, N. Van Cleemput, Construction of Planar 4-connected Triangulations, submitted.

18. C. E. Larson, L. Mitchell, B. Lins, Graphs of Unitary Matrices and Positive Definite Zero Forcing, submitted.

17. R. Gera, C. E. Larson, C. Rasmussen, and R. Pepper, Independence in Function Graphs, submitted.

16. D. J. Klein and C. E. Larson, Eigenvalues of Saturated Hydrocarbons, Journal of Mathematical Chemistry 51(6) 2013, 1608--1618.

15. C. E. Larson and R. Pepper, Three Bounds for the Independence Number of a Graph, to appear in Bulletin of the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications.

14. E. DeLaVina and C. E. Larson, A Parallel Algorithm for Computing the Critical Independence Number and Related Sets, Ars Mathematica Contemporanea 6(2) 2013, 237--245.

13. L. Eroh, R. Gera, C. Kang, C. E. Larson, and E. Yi, Domination in Functigraphs, Discussiones Mathematicae Graph Theory 32 (2012).

12. C. E. Larson and R. Pepper, Graphs with Equal Independence and Annihilation Numbers, Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, 18(1) 2011.

11. E. DeLaVina, C. E. Larson, R. Pepper, and B. Waller, A Characterization of Graphs where the Independence Number Equals the Radius, Graphs and Combinatorics 28 (2012) 315-332.

10. C. E. Larson, The Critical Independence Number and an Independence Decomposition, European Journal of Combinatorics 32(2), 2011, 294--300.

9. G. Abay-Asmeron, R. Hammack, C. E. Larson, D. T. Taylor, Notes on the independence number in the Cartesian product of graphs, Discussiotnes Mathematica Graph Theory 31(1), 2011, 25--35.

8. E. DeLaVina, C. Larson, R. Pepper and B. Waller, On total domination and support vertices of a tree, AKCE International Journal of Graphs and Combinatorics, 7 (1), 2010, 85--95.

7. E. DeLaVina, C. E. Larson, R. Pepper, and B. Waller, Graffiti.pc on the 2-domination number of a graph, Congressus Numerantium 203, 2010, 15--32.

6. G. Abay-Asmerom, R. Hammack, C. E. Larson, and D. Taylor, Direct Product Factorization of Bipartite Graphs with Bipartite-Switching Involutions, SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics 20(4), 2010, 2042--2052.

5. E. DeLaVina, C. E. Larson, R. Pepper, and B. Waller, Graffiti.pc on the total domination number of a tree, Congressus Numerantium 195, 2009, 5--18.

4. C. E. Larson, A Note on Critical Independence Reductions, Bulletin of the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications 5, 2007, 34--46.

3. C. E. Larson, A Survey of Research in Automated Mathematical Conjecture-making, in Graphs and Discovery, ed. by S. Fajtlowicz, P. W. Fowler, P. Hansen, M. F. Janowitz and F. S. Roberts, DIMACS, 2005, 297--318.

2. S. Fajtlowicz and C. E. Larson, Graph-theoretic Independence as a Predictor of Fullerene Stability, Chemical-Physics Letters, 377/5-6, 2003, 485--490.

1. C. E. Larson, Intelligent Machinery and Mathematical Discovery, Graph Theory Notes of the New York Academy of Science XLII, 2002, 8--17.

Other

1. C. E. Larson, Technology, Education and the Single-Salary Schedule, Notices of the American Mathematical Society, May 2006, 525.

• Biographical: I am originally from California. My mom is German and my dad is Chicagoan. I have a younger brother Kevin (he's a researcher at Microsoft now). Dad was an aerospace engineer (he worked on Skylab, Shuttle, and the Space Station, among other things) and taught us a lot of math when we were kids. We grew up in Huntington Beach, where I still have a lot of buddies. I grew up a huge fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Boston Celtics (which was a little awkward), and UCLA Bruins basketball. I'm still a fan. Of course, now I'm a big VCU fan too.

  In high school I was a Congressional Page, ran cross country and track (I ran a 4:50 mile as a sophomore), and was pretty geeky. I went to the University of Houston on a National Merit scholarship. In college I studied philosophy as well as math, and have advanced degrees in both. I taught for many years in the math department at the University of Houston, where I won a teaching award, and met my beautiful wife Jeanine.

  We're both big music fans and cat lovers. We like to run, bike, travel, read, eat, see bands, movies and the ballet. We have a little guy, Linus Carl Larson, with us in our adventures. And now I'm at VCU, where I've also won a teaching award.

  My research currently involves graph theory, fullerenes and artificial intelligence; but I'm interested in many many many things. In the spring of 2012, I was at Texas A&M University, Galveston, working with, and learning from Doug Klein, a theoretical chemist and chemical graph theorist, and in Spring 2013, I was at Ghent University, Belgium, as a Fulbright Research Scholar, working with Gunnar Brinkmann, an expert in graph algorithms and graph generation.

• I've been really lucky to learn from great, smart and inspiring advisors. These include Justin Leiber (Philosophy M.A.), Siemion Fajtlowicz (Math M.S.), Ermelinda Delavina & Klaus Kaiser (Math Ph.D.), Doug Klein (TAMUG), and Gunnar Brinkmann (Ghent).
• My heroes and people I admire include my parents and my wife, Alan Turing, Thomas Paine, Jack Edmonds, Jackie Robinson, John Wooden, Charlie Chaplin, Julian Simon, Jaime Escalante, John Coltrane, Woody Allen, Bill Russell, Laszlo Lovasz, Linus Pauling, James Randi, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, Paul Erdos, Milton Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Nels Cline, Louis Armstrong, and Krzysztof Kieslowski.

  Be a punk, question authorities, think for yourself, put yourself out there, and give it your all. Stop watching TV. Be active. Do stuff. "Start your own band. Write your own book. Paint your own picture!"

• Bertrand Russell's Ten Commandments of teaching.
• A Richmond Rental Nightmare.
• Best and Worst of Richmond, 2008-2010.