A categorical setting for the 4-colour theorem (Q1901000)

The paper deals with the 4-Colour Problem and analyzes colourings in terms of universal properties and adjoint functors. It is well known that every planar graph is 4-colourable if and only if every cubic graph has a 3-colouring of its edges. A topos \({\mathcal A}\) of colour algebras is introduced together with a functor from \({\mathcal A}\) to the topos \({\mathcal G}\) of cubic graphs. This functor is shown to be cotripleable; every loop-free graph is covered by a 3-coloured one in a universal way. In this context, the 4-Colour Theorem becomes the following statement: Every cubic graph with no loops or bridges allows an \(H\)-coalgebra structure (where \(H\) is the cotriple on \({\mathcal G})\).