A generalization of Tait coloring cubic graphs (Q2706952)

Let \(G\) be a bridgeless cubic graph. A Tait coloring of \(G\) assigns one of 3 colors to each edge such that at each vertex every color appears. Let \(F\) denote the Fano plane: the projective plane on 7 points. An \(F\)-coloring assigns one of the points of \(F\) to each edge such that at every vertex, the points assigned to the three incident edges form a line in \(F\). The idea is that fixing the colors of any two edges incident with a vertex forces the color on the third incident edge. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThis paper examines the question ``Does every bridgeless cubic graph have an \(F\)-coloring?'' The author proves that the answer is yes for all bridgeless graphs of order at most 189, and for all such graphs of genus at most 24. The proofs involve two reduction lemmas for \(F\)-colorings.