Related papers: A counterexample to Beck's conjecture on the discr…

A $k$-permutation family on $n$ vertices is a set system consisting of the intervals of $k$ permutations of the integers $1$ through $n$. The discrepancy of a set system is the minimum over all red-blue vertex colorings of the maximum…

One of the prominent open problems in combinatorics is the discrepancy of set systems where each element lies in at most $t$ sets. The Beck-Fiala conjecture suggests that the right bound is $O(\sqrt{t})$, but for three decades the only…

Motivated by the celebrated Beck-Fiala conjecture, we consider the random setting where there are $n$ elements and $m$ sets and each element lies in $t$ randomly chosen sets. In this setting, Ezra and Lovett showed an $O((t \log t)^{1/2})$…

In 1981, Beck and Fiala [Discrete Appl. Math, 1981] conjectured that given a set system $A \in \{0,1\}^{m \times n}$ with degree at most $k$ (i.e., each column of $A$ has at most $k$ non-zeros), its combinatorial discrepancy…

A well studied special case of bin packing is the 3-partition problem, where n items of size > 1/4 have to be packed in a minimum number of bins of capacity one. The famous Karmarkar-Karp algorithm transforms a fractional solution of a…

The order $O_n(\sigma)$ of a permutation $\sigma$ of $n$ objects is the smallest integer $k \geq 1$ such that the $k$-th iterate of $\sigma$ gives the identity. A remarkable result about the order of a uniformly chosen permutation is due to…

We show that the number of geometric permutations of an arbitrary collection of $n$ pairwise disjoint convex sets in $\mathbb{R}^d$, for $d\geq 3$, is $O(n^{2d-3}\log n)$, improving Wenger's 20 years old bound of $O(n^{2d-2})$.

We investigate the combinatorial discrepancy of geometric set systems having bounded shallow cell complexity in the \emph{Beck-Fiala} setting, where each point belongs to at most $t$ ranges. For set systems with shallow cell complexity…

We prove a "decomposition lemma" that allows us to count preimages of certain sets of permutations under West's stack-sorting map $s$. As a first application, we give a new proof of Zeilberger's formula for the number of 2-stack-sortable…

Let $i(n,k)$ be the proportion of permutations $\pi\in\mathcal{S}_n$ having an invariant set of size $k$. In this note we adapt arguments of the second author to prove that $i(n,k) \asymp k^{-\delta} (1+\log k)^{-3/2}$ uniformly for $1\leq…

Merker conjectured that if $k \ge 2$ is an integer and $G$ a 3-connected cubic planar graph of circumference at least $k$, then the set of cycle lengths of $G$ must contain at least one element of the interval $[k, 2k+2]$. We here prove…

Let $\varepsilon>0$. We construct an explicit, full-measure set of $\alpha \in[0,1]$ such that if $\gamma \in \mathbb{R}$ then, for almost all $\beta \in[0,1]$, if $\delta \in \mathbb{R}$ then there are infinitely many integers $n\geq 1$…

In the present paper we prove several results concerning the existence of low-discrepancy point sets with respect to an arbitrary non-uniform measure $\mu$ on the $d$-dimensional unit cube. We improve a theorem of Beck, by showing that for…

Strassen's asymptotic rank conjecture [Progr. Math. 120 (1994)] claims a strong submultiplicative upper bound on the rank of a three-tensor obtained as an iterated Kronecker product of a constant-size base tensor. The conjecture, if true,…

We give a short proof that Strassen's asymptotic rank conjecture implies that for every $\varepsilon > 0$ there exists a $(3/2^{2/3} + \varepsilon)^n$-time algorithm for set cover on a universe of size $n$ with sets of bounded size. This…

In 1981 Beck and Fiala proved an upper bound for the discrepancy of a set system of degree d that is independent of the size of the ground set. In the intervening years the bound has been decreased from 2d-2 to 2d-4. We improve the bound to…

A family $\mathcal F\subset 2^{[n]}$ is called intersecting if any two of its sets intersect. Given an intersecting family, its diversity is the number of sets not passing through the most popular element of the ground set. Peter Frankl…

In this paper, we initiate the study of discrepancy questions for combinatorial designs. Specifically, we show that, for every fixed $r\ge 3$ and $n\equiv 1,3 \pmod{6}$, any $r$-colouring of the triples on $[n]$ admits a Steiner triple…

Permutation patterns and pattern avoidance have been intensively studied in combinatorics and computer science, going back at least to the seminal work of Knuth on stack-sorting (1968). Perhaps the most natural algorithmic question in this…

A family of sets is said to be symmetric if its automorphism group is transitive, and $3$-wise intersecting if any three sets in the family have nonempty intersection. Frankl conjectured in 1981 that if $\mathcal{A}$ is a symmetric $3$-wise…