Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-graph-theory-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2011/1/a/solution

The Ramsey number is the least integer such that every graph on vertices contains either a clique of size or an independent set of size . Equivalently, every red-blue colouring of the edges of contains a red or a blue .
Put , and consider a graph on vertices. Fix a vertex . If it has at least neighbours, their induced graph contains either a clique of size , which together with gives a clique of size , or an independent set of size . Otherwise has at least nonneighbours. Their induced graph contains either a clique of size , or an independent set of size , which can be enlarged by . Thus
Since , this gives . For the reverse bound, the five-cycle has no triangle and no independent set of size three: its complement is again a five-cycle, so it too is triangle-free. Hence the property fails on five vertices and
Figure 1.
The five-cycle and its complement witness the lower bound for R(3,3)
. Both panels use the same five labelled vertices. The red cycle and the blue complementary edges are each triangle-free; crossings in the right panel are not vertices. Details.

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