Question

What is the difference between

connected

strongly-connected and

complete?

My understanding is:

connected: you can get to every vertex from every other vertex.

strongly connected: every vertex has an edge connecting it to every other vertex.

complete: same as strongly connected.

Is this correct?

Answer 1

• Connected is usually associated with undirected graphs (two way edges): there is a path between every two nodes.
• Strongly connected is usually associated with directed graphs (one way edges): there is a route between every two nodes.
• Complete graphs are undirected graphs where there is an edge between every pair of nodes.

Answer 2

I agree with Alex. Note that Strongly connected means "there is a route/path" instead of "there is an edge" between every two nodes.

Answer 3

It is also important to remember the distinction between strongly connected and unilaterally connected. A directed graph is unilaterally connected if for any two vertices a and b, there is a directed path from a to b or from b to a but not necessarily both (although there could be). Strongly connected implies that both directed paths exist. This means that strongly connected graphs are a subset of unilaterally connected graphs.

And a directed graph is weakly connected if it's underlying graph is connected.

Answer 4

Alex, can you explain a bit more on the difference between a Connected Graph and a Complete Graph?

It seems the only difference is that one uses path and the other uses edge. Aren't they the same? When you said for a Complete Graph, it's when:

"are undirected graphs where there is an edge between every pair of nodes".

Well, since it's an undirected graph then you can traverse both ways, hence why it's an "edge". But doesn't that mean the same as 'path'? I.e, there's a path between every two nodes that you can traverse between? So isn't that just the same as the definition of a Connected Graph then?