Lecture 11: Practice Problems

1. Unique MST?

If all edge weights are distinct (no two edges have same weight), is the MST unique?

Show Answer

Yes.

The greedy choice at every step is strictly better than any other choice. There is only one valid set of edges.

2. Maximum Spanning Tree

How would you find a Spanning Tree with MAXIMUM total weight?

Show Answer

Two ways:

1. Negate all weights and run Kruskal/Prim.

2. Modify Kruskal to sort edges Descending (and skip cycles).