Related papers: A simple solution to Ulam's liar game with one lie

Let $f(m)$ be the largest integer such that for every set $A = \{a_1 < \cdots < a_m\}$ of $m$ positive integers and every open interval $I$ of length $2a_m$, there exist at least $f(m)$ disjoint pairs $(a, b)$ with $a \in A$ dividing $b \in…

Large language models (LLMs) can "lie", which we define as outputting false statements despite "knowing" the truth in a demonstrable sense. LLMs might "lie", for example, when instructed to output misinformation. Here, we develop a simple…

It is well known that the following Collatz Conjecture is one of the unsolved problems in mathematics. Collatz Conjecture: For any positive integer $n>1$, the following recursive algorithm will convergent to 1 by a finite number of steps.…

A proposal in a weighted voting game is accepted if the sum of the (non-negative) weights of the "yea" voters is at least as large as a given quota. Several authors have considered representations of weighted voting games with minimum sum,…

Motivated by the rapid ascent of Large Language Models (LLMs) and debates about the extent to which they possess human-level qualities, we propose a framework for testing whether any agent (be it a machine or a human) understands a subject…

To determine whether a number is congruent or not is an old and difficult topic and progress is slow. The paper presents a new theorem when a prime number is a congruent number or not. The proof is not necessarily any simpler or shorter…

We find a formula for the number of solutions of linear congruence systems, by using elementary methods.

This work is motivated by a question at the heart of unsupervised learning approaches: Assume we are collecting a number K of (subjective) opinions about some event E from K different agents. Can we infer E from them? Prima facie this seems…

The sudoku minimum number of clues problem is the following question: what is the smallest number of clues that a sudoku puzzle can have? For several years it had been conjectured that the answer is 17. We have performed an exhaustive…

We consider problems where $n$ people are communicating and a random subset of them is trying to leak information, without making it clear who are leaking the information. We introduce a measure of suspicion, and show that the amount of…

Erd\H{o}s posed the question whether there exist infinitely many sets of consecutive numbers whose least common multiple (lcm) exceeds the lcm of another, larger set with greater consecutive numbers. In this paper, we answer this question…

We call positive integer n a near-perfect number, if it is sum of all its proper divisors, except of one of them ("redundant divisor"). We prove an Euclid-like theorem for near-perfect numbers and obtain some other results for them.

Suppose we know that an object is in a sorted table and we want to determine the index of that object. To achieve this goal we could perform a binary search. However, suppose it is time-consuming to determine the relative position of that…

We improve the solution of the classical prisoners and drawers riddle, where all prisoners can find their number using the pointer-following strategy, provided that the prisoners can send a spy to inspect all drawers and swap one pair of…

Consider the following game: You are given two indistinguishable envelopes, each containing money. One contains twice as much as the other. You may pick one envelope and keep the money it contains. Having chosen an envelope, you are given…

We introduce a three-player nonlocal game, with a finite number of classical questions and answers, such that the optimal success probability of $1$ in the game can only be achieved in the limit of strategies using arbitrarily…

Euler's theorem asserts that $A(n)=B(n)$ where $A(n)$ is the number of partitions of $n$ into distinct parts and $B(n)$ is the number of partitions of $n$ into odd parts. In this paper, it is proved that for $n>0$, \begin{align*}…

Large Language Models (LLMs) have achieved human-level proficiency across diverse tasks, but their ability to perform rigorous mathematical problem solving remains an open challenge. In this work, we investigate a fundamental yet…

We consider election scenarios with incomplete information, a situation that arises often in practice. There are several models of incomplete information and accordingly, different notions of outcomes of such elections. In one well-studied…

Large language models increasingly rely on explicit reasoning chains and can produce multiple plausible responses for a given context. We study the candidate sampler that produces the set of plausible responses contrasting the ancestral…