23It would not be hard to present the history of graph theory as an accountof the struggle to prove the four color conjecture, or at least to find outwhytheproblemisdifficult.William T. Tutte (1967)IntheApril1,1975issueof the magazine Scientific Americanthepopular math-ematicswriterMartinGardner(bornin1914)stunnedthemathematicalcommunity(at least momentarily)when he wrote an articletitled Sir sensational discoveriesthat somehow have escaped public attention that contained a map (see Figure 18)advertised as one that could not be colored with four colors. However, several indi-viduals found that this map could in fact be colored with four colors, only to learnthat Gardner had intended this article as an April Fool's joke.Figure 18: Martin Gardner's April Fool's MapIn the meantime, Haken had been losing faith in a computer-aided solution of theFour Color Problem despite the fact that he had a doctoral student at the Universityof Illinois whose research was related to the problem.One of the members of thisstudent's thesis committee was Kenneth Appel (born in 1932).After completinghis undergraduate degree at Queens College with a special interest in actuarialmathematics, Appel worked at an insurance company and shortly afterwards wasdrafted and began a period of military service. He then went to the University ofMichigan for his graduate studies in mathematics. During the spring of 1956, theUniversity of Michigan acquired an IBM 650 and the very first programming courseoffered at the university was taught by John W.Carr, IIl, one of the pioneers ofcomputer education in the United States..Curiously,Carr'sdoctoral advisorattheMassachusettsInstituteof TechnologwasPhillipFranklin,who,aswementionedwrote his dissertation on the Four Color Problem.Appel audited this programming23 It would not be hard to present the history of graph theory as an account of the struggle to prove the four color conjecture, or at least to find out why the problem is difficult. William T. Tutte (1967) In the April 1, 1975 issue of the magazine Scientific American the popular math￾ematics writer Martin Gardner (born in 1914) stunned the mathematical community (at least momentarily) when he wrote an article titled Six sensational discoveries that somehow have escaped public attention that contained a map (see Figure 18) advertised as one that could not be colored with four colors. However, several indi￾viduals found that this map could in fact be colored with four colors, only to learn that Gardner had intended this article as an April Fool’s joke. .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Figure 18: Martin Gardner’s April Fool’s Map In the meantime, Haken had been losing faith in a computer-aided solution of the Four Color Problem despite the fact that he had a doctoral student at the University of Illinois whose research was related to the problem. One of the members of this student’s thesis committee was Kenneth Appel (born in 1932). After completing his undergraduate degree at Queens College with a special interest in actuarial mathematics, Appel worked at an insurance company and shortly afterwards was drafted and began a period of military service. He then went to the University of Michigan for his graduate studies in mathematics. During the spring of 1956, the University of Michigan acquired an IBM 650 and the very first programming course offered at the university was taught by John W. Carr, III, one of the pioneers of computer education in the United States. Curiously, Carr’s doctoral advisor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was Phillip Franklin, who, as we mentioned, wrote his dissertation on the Four Color Problem. Appel audited this programming