A surprising permanence of old motivations (a not-so-rigid story) (Q1045032)

This paper written by Jaroslav Nešetřil is dedicated to his lifelong friend and mathematical colleague Pavol Hell. Their long collaboration started during the university studies in Prague and since that time, they have jointly published a number of titles devoted to graph theory. The author describes their early interest in rigid graphs, i.~e.~graphs~\(G\) such that the only homomorphism \(G\to G\) is the identity. This work has subsequently led to the fruitful notion of the core of a graph (or, more generally, the core of a structure) and the investigation of its properties. The paper provides an account of these developments, but also contains numerous photos, illustrations and interesting information about the mathematical careers of J.~Nešetřil and P.~Hell.