Related papers: Martin Gardner's minimum no-3-in-a-line problem
Given a finite grid in $\mathbb{R}^2$, how many lines are needed to cover all but one point at least $k$ times? Problems of this nature have been studied for decades, with a general lower bound having been established by Ball and Serra. We…
A planar graph $G$ is called a pentagulation of an $n$-gon ($n\geq$ is an integer) if all faces of $G$ are pentagons, except one, which is an $n$-gon. A $3$-connected pentagulation $G$ of an $n$-gon is called minimal if it has the smallest…
The number of $n \times n$ matrices whose entries are either -1, 0, or 1, whose row- and column- sums are all 1, and such that in every row and every column the non-zero entries alternate in sign, is proved to be $[1!4! >...…
Let $G$ be a finite group. In order to determine the smallest cardinality $d(G)$ of a generating set of $G$ and a generating set with this cardinality, one should repeat many times the test whether a subset of $G$ of small cardinality…
Let $G = (V,E)$ be a graph, and for each $e \in E(G)$, let $L_e$ be a list of real numbers. Let $w:E(G) \to \cup_{e \in E(G)}L_e$ be an edge weighting function such that $w(e) \in L_e$ for each $e \in E(G)$, and let $c_w$ be the vertex…
We solve the currently smallest open case in the 1976 problem of Molluzzo on $\mathbb{Z}/m\mathbb{Z}$, namely the case $m=4$. This amounts to constructing, for all positive integer $n$ congruent to $0$ or $7 \bmod{8}$, a sequence of…
The notion of noncrossing partitions of a partially ordered set (poset) is introduced here. When the poset in question is $[n]=\{1,2,\dots, n\}$ with the complete order of natural numbers, conventional noncrossing partitions arise. The…
We prove that a 3-GDD of type $1^n k^1 \ell^1$, where $n= k \cdot \ell$, with minimum distance 3 exists for every $k$ and $\ell$ such that $n = k \ell$, $k = 1$ or $3~(mod ~ 6)$, and $\ell = 1$ or $3~(mod ~ 6)$. These designs are of the…
It is shown that $m$ disjoint sets with fixed Gaussian volumes that partition $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ with minimum Gaussian surface area must be $(m-1)$-dimensional. This follows from a second variation argument using infinitesimal translations.…
Burr and Erd\H{o}s conjectured in 1976 that for every two integers $k>\ell\geqslant 0$ satisfying that $k\mathbb{Z}+\ell$ contains an even integer, an $n$-vertex graph containing no cycles of length $\ell$ modulo $k$ can contain at most a…
The Collatz conjecture (or ``Syracuse problem'') considers recursively-defined sequences of positive integers where $n$ is succeeded by $\tfrac{n}{2}$, if $n$ is even, or $\tfrac{3n+1}{2}$, if $n$ is odd. The conjecture states that for all…
In this paper, we introduce the following new concept in graph drawing. Our task is to find a small collection of drawings such that they all together satisfy some property that is useful for graph visualization. We propose investigating a…
Let g(n) denote the minimum number of edges of a maximal nontraceable graph of order n. Dudek, Katona and Wojda (2003) showed that g(n)\geq\ceil{(3n-2)/2}-2 for n\geq 20 and g(n)\leq\ceil{(3n-2)/2} for n\geq 54 as well as for n\in…
Let $n_g(k)$ denote the smallest order of a $k$-chromatic graph of girth at least $g$. We consider the problem of determining $n_g(k)$ for small values of $k$ and $g$. After giving an overview of what is known about $n_g(k)$, we provide…
What is the smallest number of pieces that you can cut an n-sided regular polygon into so that the pieces can be rearranged to form a rectangle? Call it r(n). The rectangle may have any proportions you wish, as long as it is a rectangle.…
In 2018, the concept of a fort in graph theory was introduced as a non-empty subset of vertices satisfying the condition that no vertex outside the set has exactly one neighbor in the set. Since then, forts have played a significant role in…
We will consider some extensions of the polygonal art gallery problem. In a recent paper Morrison has shown the smallest (9 sides) example of an art gallery that cannot be observed by guards placed in every third corner. Author also…
Write f(n) for the minimum number of 4-cliques in graphs of order n with triangle-free complement. Finding f(n) is a particular case of a problem raised by Erdos in 1962. We give an upper bound of f(n) and a matching lower bound when the…
We disprove a conjecture by Ye and Lim, by showing that there are $3 \times 3$ complex matrices which can't be expressed as the product of two Toeplitz matrices of the same size. We also improve previous estimates by Ye and Lim on the…
In 1937, Lothar Collatz conjectured that the sequence generated by the rule $f(n)=3n+1$ for $n\in\mathbb{N}$ odd, $f(n)=n/2$ for $n\in\mathbb{N}$ even, starting in any positive integer $n$ produces $1$. This is equivalent to (1) there are…