Date of Award

8-1-2017

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Mathematics

First Advisor

Kocik, Jerzy

Abstract

In the Game of Light, as formulated in "Harmonic Evolutions" (J. Kocik, 2007), there is a definition of dynamic graphs and a thorough explanation of how to find the structure of the digraph that shows the changing of states during the game. This thesis furthers this research in two directions: first, by exploring what happens when there are more than two vertex states, by expanding the state space to any cyclic group. Secondly, the research attempted to identify families of graphs and describe their graph states using only the number of vertex states. To further both of these goals, two programs were written, one as a calculator to compute the digraph structure, and one as a visualization tool that automates the game of light, allowing users to input graphs with simple point and click commands, and to easily see how graphs evolve. Finally, about one hundred graphs were evaluated using the calculator, and the resulting structures are recorded.

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