English

Wiring switches to more light bulbs

Combinatorics 2025-02-25 v2

Abstract

Given nn buttons and nn bulbs so that the iith button toggles the iith bulb and perhaps some other bulbs, we compute the sharp lower bound on the number of bulbs that can be lit regardless of the action of the buttons. In the previous article we dealt with the case where each button affects at most 2 or 3 bulbs. In the present article we give sharp lower bounds for up to 4 or 5 wires per switch, and we show that the sharp asymptotic bound for an arbitrary number of wires is 12\frac12. (Even if you've found their buttons, you can please no more than half the people all the time!)

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.02460,
  title  = {Wiring switches to more light bulbs},
  author = {Stephen M. Buckley and Anthony G. O'Farrell},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.02460},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

22 pages, 6 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:06:57.563Z