No abstract

We present an algorithm for finding the minimum cut of an undirected edge-weighted graph. It is simple in every respect. It has a short and compact description, is easy to implement, and has a surprisingly simple proof of correctness. Its runtime matches that of the fastest algorithm known. The runtime analysis is straightforward. In contrast to nearly all approaches so far, the algorithm uses no flow techniques. Roughly speaking, the algorithm consists of about ͉V͉ nearly identical phases each of which is a maximum adjacency search.

The following packing problem arises in connection with

We show that NIP fields have no Artin-Schreier extension, and that simple fields have only a finite number of them.