when was the four color map problem solved
Four color theorem The four color theorem was proved in 1976 by Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken. It was the first major theorem to be proved using a computer. Appel and Haken's approach started by showing that there is a particular set of 1,936 maps, each of which cannot be part of a smallest-sized counterexample to the four color theorem. (If they did appear, there would be a smaller counterexample.) Appel and Haken used a special-purpose computer program to confirm that each of these maps had this property. Additionally, any map that could potentially be a counterexample must have a portion that looks like one of these 1,936 maps. Showing this required hundreds of pages of hand analysis. Appel and Haken concluded that no smallest counterexamples exist because any must contain, yet do not contain, one of these 1,936 maps. This contradiction means there are no counterexamples at all and that the theorem is therefore true. Initially, their proof was not accepted by all mathematicians because the computer-assisted proof was infeasible for a human to check by hand (Swart 1980). Since then the proof has gained wider acceptance, although doubts remain (Wilson 2014, 216â€“222). Stephen Wolfram, for example, stated that in general, proofs can be arbitrarily long, and can be quite devoid of what might be considered meaningful structure and thus are often considered controversial - listing the Four-Color Theorem as just one example of such case.[2]