MATCHING POLYNOMIALS AND THE PROBLEM OF THE ROOKS
Jill Bigley Dunham · 2007
This talk will present a combinatorial problem, the problem of the rooks, as a way to introduce the concept of matching polynomials. A matching polynomial is a generating function for a sequence of matchings in a graph. This leads us to an alternate formulation of the problem of the rooks: as a problem of matchings in a bipartite graph. In this way, the concept of a rook polynomial can be generalized to any graph.