Otakar!Boruvka on minimum spanning tree problem -: Translation of both the 1926 papers, comments, history

Bor (u) over circle vka presented in 1926 the first solution of the Minimum Spanning Tree Problem (MST) which is generally regarded as a cornerstone of Combinatorial Optimization. In this paper we present the first English translation of both of his pioneering works. This is followed by the survey of development related to the MST problem and by remarks and historical perspective. Out of many available algorithms to solve MST the Bor (u) over circle vka's algorithm is the basis of the fastest known algorithms. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.