Related papers: Unshuffling a Square is NP-Hard
A square is a word of the form $xx$ for a non-empty word $x$. Brlek and Li [Comb. Theory, 2025] proved that the number of distinct squares in a word $w$ of length $n$ is at most $n - \sigma$, where $\sigma$ is the number of letters used in…
A procedure that generates parallelograms from any quadrilateral is presented. If the original quadrilateral is itself a parallelogram, then the procedure gives squares. Hence, when applied two times, this procedure generates squares from…
Covers being one of the most popular form of regularities in strings, have drawn much attention over time. In this paper, we focus on the problem of linear time inference of strings from cover arrays using the least sized alphabet possible.…
We consider a card guessing game with complete feedback. An ordered deck of $n$ cards labeled $1$ up to $n$ is riffle-shuffled exactly one time. Given a value $p\in(0{,}1)\setminus\{\frac12\}$, the riffle shuffle is assumed to be…
Deciding whether a given graph has a square root is a classical problem that has been studied extensively both from graph theoretic and from algorithmic perspectives. The problem is NP-complete in general, and consequently substantial…
When eating spaghetti, one should have the sauce and noodles mixed instead of eating them separately. We argue that also in string solving, word equations and regular constraints are better mixed together than approached separately as in…
We find all the classical solutions (minimal surfaces) of open or closed strings in {\it any} two dimensional curved spacetime. As examples we consider the SL(2,R)/R two dimensional black hole, and any 4D black hole in the Schwarzschild…
The essential requirement for a cubic graph to be called a snark is that it can not be edge-coloured with three colours. To avoid trivial cases, varying restrictions on the connectivity are imposed. Snarks are not only interesting in…
Tetravex is a widely played one person computer game in which you are given $n^2$ unit tiles, each edge of which is labelled with a number. The objective is to place each tile within a $n$ by $n$ square such that all neighbouring edges are…
In string-bit models, string is described as a polymer of point-like constituents. We attempt to use string-bit ideas to investigate how the size of string is affected by string interactions in a non-perturbative context. Lacking adequate…
In the present popular science paper we determine when a square can be dissected into rectangles similar to a given rectangle. The approach to the question is based on a physical interpretation using electrical networks. Only secondary…
String matching is one of the most fundamental problems in computer science. A natural problem is to determine the number of characters that need to be queried (i.e. the decision tree complexity) in a string in order to decide whether this…
This study develops an algorithm to solve a variation of the Shortest Common Superstring (SCS) problem. There are two modifications to the base SCS problem. First, one string in the set S is allowed to have up to K mistakes, defined as not…
This work explores the relationship between solution space and time complexity in the context of the $\textbf{P}$ vs. $\textbf{NP}$ problem, particularly through the lens of the sliding tile puzzle and root finding algorithms. We focus on…
We perform imaging of a fundamental string from string scattering amplitudes, and show that its image is a double slit.
The 15 puzzle is a classic reconfiguration puzzle with fifteen uniquely labeled unit squares within a $4 \times 4$ board in which the goal is to slide the squares (without ever overlapping) into a target configuration. By generalizing the…
The square of a graph $G$, denoted $G^2$, is obtained from $G$ by putting an edge between two distinct vertices whenever their distance is two. Then $G$ is called a square root of $G^2$. Deciding whether a given graph has a square root is…
In the plane, three integer points ("fleas") are given. At every tick of time, two of them (say, P,Q) instantly jump to two vacant points R,S, so that PQRS is a square with that order of vertices. Description of all integers and…
Motivated by Chudnovsky's structure theorem of bull-free graphs, Abu-Khzam, Feghali, and M\"uller have recently proved that deciding if a graph has a vertex partition into disjoint cliques and a triangle-free graph is NP-complete for five…
The study of strings is an important combinatorial field that precedes the digital computer. Strings can be very long, trillions of letters, so it is important to find compact representations. Here we first survey various forms of one…