No label defined (Q4035822)

[For the entire collection see Zbl 0752.00055.] This paper is essentially promotional material for the subject of random walks on finite graphs. Eleven contexts of application are sketched: analogy with electrical networks, levelling networks, recreational problems (chess), universal traversal sequences, minimization algorithms, simulating uniform distributions on combinatorial sets, random spanning trees in regular graphs, planar graphs, voter models, diffusions on regular fractals, random fractals. The paper then provides brief comments on twelve techniques which are useful in the analysis of these problems: reversible Markov chains, group representation theory, weakening symmetry conditions, hard analysis, infinite and finite graphs, naive and threshold limits, isoperimetric inequalities, analytic and probabilistic parameters, spectral theory of graphs, exact extremal graphs, fractional dimension, martingale methods.