Related papers: Avoiding Three Consecutive Blocks of the Same Size…

We consider words over a binary alphabet. A word $w$ is overlap-free if it does not have factors (blocks of consecutive letters) of the form $uvuvu$ for nonempty $u$. Let $M(w)$ denote the number of positions that are middle positions of…

In this paper, we consider infinite words that arise as fixed points of primitive substitutions on a finite alphabet and finite colorings of their factors. Any such infinite word exhibits a "hierarchal structure" that will allow us to…

A word w is rich if it has |w|+1 many distinct palindromic factors, including the empty word. A word is square-free if it does not have a factor uu, where u is a non-empty word. Pelantov\'a and Starosta (Discrete Math. 313 (2013)) proved…

We investigate the avoidability of unary patterns of size of four with morphic permutations. More precisely, we show that, for the positive integers $i,j,k$, the sizes of the alphabets over which a pattern $x \pi ^ {i} (x) \pi^{j}(x)…

Given a word $w$, what is the maximum possible number of appearances of $w$ reading contiguously along any of the directions in $\{-1, 0, 1\}^d \setminus \{\mathbf{0}\}$ in a large $d$-dimensional grid (as in a word search)? Patchell and…

We solve a problem of Petrova, finalizing the classification of letter patterns avoidable by ternary square-free words; we show that there is a ternary square-free word avoiding letter pattern $xyzxzyx$. In fact, we: (1) characterize all…

In 1999 Lyngs{\o} and Pedersen proposed a conjecture stating that every binary circular word of length $n$ with equal number of zeros and ones has an antipalindromic linear subsequence of length at least $\frac{2}{3}n$. No progress over a…

A word contains a \emph{half-flip} if it contains non-empty factors $uv$ and $vu$ where $|u|=|v|$. Fici reports a non-constructive proof of the existence of an infinite word over a finite alphabet avoiding half-flips and asks for the size…

The following special case of a conjecture by Loehr and Warrington was proved recently by Ekhad, Vatter, and Zeilberger: There are 10^n zero-sum words of length 5n in the alphabet {+3,-2} such that no zero-sum consecutive subword that…

This paper is concerned with the problem of expressing three consecutive integers as sums of three cubes. We give several parametric solutions of the problem. We also give somewhat trivial solutions of five or seven consecutive integers…

We consider the following novel variation on a classical avoidance problem from combinatorics on words: instead of avoiding repetitions in all factors of a word, we avoid repetitions in all factors where each individual factor is considered…

Initially stated in terms of Beatty sequences, the Fraenkel conjecture can be reformulated as follows: for a $k$-letter alphabet A, with a fixed $k \geq 3$, there exists a unique balanced infinite word, up to letter permutations and shifts,…

Words whose three successive factors of the same length are all different i.e. 3-anti-power words are a natural extension of square-free words (two successive factors of the same length are different). We give a way to verify whether a…

In combinatorics on words, a word $w$ over an alphabet $\Sigma$ is said to avoid a pattern $p$ over an alphabet $\Delta$ if there is no factor $f$ of $w$ such that $f=h(p)$ where $h:\Delta^*\to\Sigma^*$ is a non-erasing morphism. A pattern…

We show that for any two distinct words $ s_1, s_2 $ over an arbitrary alphabets, there exists a deterministic finite automaton with $ O(\log^2 n) $ states that accepts $ s_1 $ and rejects $ s_2 $. This improves the previous upper bound of…

We solve two long-standing open problems on word equations. Firstly, we prove that a one-variable word equation with constants has either at most three or an infinite number of solutions. The existence of such a bound had been conjectured,…

A sequence is nonrepetitive if it does not contain two adjacent identical blocks. The remarkable construction of Thue asserts that 3 symbols are enough to build an arbitrarily long nonrepetitive sequence. It is still not settled whether the…

We consider the enumeration of ordered set partitions avoiding a permutation pattern, as introduced by Godbole, Goyt, Herdan and Pudwell. Let $\op_{n,k}(p)$ be the number of ordered set partitions of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ into $k$ blocks that…

The critical exponent of an infinite word $\bf x$ is the supremum, over all finite nonempty factors $f$, of the exponent of $f$. In this note we show that for all integers $k\geq 2,$ there is a binary infinite $k$-automatic sequence with…

This paper is concerned with finite sequences of integers that may be written as sums of squares of two nonzero integers. We first find infinitely many integers $n$ such that $n, n+h$ and $n+k$ are all sums of two squares where $h$ and $k$…