graph K5 nor the complete bipartite graph K3,3 as minors. Neil Robertson, Paul Seymour, and Robin Thomas used the Petersen family as part of a similar characterization of linkless embeddings of graphs, embeddings of a given graph into Euclidean space in such a way that every cycle in the graph is the boundary of a disk that is not crossed by any other part of the graph. Horst Sachs had previously studied such embeddings, shown that the seven graphs of the Petersen family do not have such embeddings, and posed the question of characterizing the linklessly embeddable graphs by forbidden subgraphs. Robertson et al. solved Sachs' question by showing that the linkless embeddable graphs are exactly the graphs that do not have a member of the Petersen family as a minor. The Petersen family also form some of the forbidden minors for another family of graphs, the YΔY-reducible graphs. A connected graph is YΔY-reducible if it can be reduced to a single vertex by a sequence of steps, each of which is a Δ-Y or Y-Δ transform, the removal of a self-loop or multiple adjacency, the removal of a vertex with one neighbor, and the replacement of a vertex of degree two and its two neighboring edges by a single edge. For instance, the complete graph K4 can be reduced to a single vertex by a Y-Δ transform that turns it into a triangle with doubled edges, removal of the three doubled edges, a Δ-Y transform that turns it into the claw K1,3, and removal of the three degree-one vertices of the claw. Each of the Petersen family graphs forms a minimal forbidden minor for the family of YΔY-reducible graphs. However, Neil Robertson provided an example of an apex graph (a linkless embeddable graph formed by adding one vertex to a planar graph) that is not YΔY-reducible, showing that the YΔY-reducible graphs form a proper subclass of the linkless embeddable graphs and have additional forbidden minors. In fact, as Yaming Yu showed, there are at least 68,897,913,652 forbidden minors for the YΔY-reducible graphs beyond the seven of the Petersen family. References Graph families Graph minor theory