Related papers: Cookie Monster Devours Naccis
We define a set of restricted Reidemeister moves and show that if $K$ is obtained from $K_0\,\#\,K_1$ using those moves, then the crossing number of $K$ is at least $c(K_0)+c(K_1)$. We also explore topological interpretations of this…
We propose a new kind of sliding-block puzzle, called Gourds, where the objective is to rearrange 1 x 2 pieces on a hexagonal grid board of 2n + 1 cells with n pieces, using sliding, turning and pivoting moves. This puzzle has a single…
We use uniqueness of a VOA (vertex operator algebra) extension of $(V_{EE_8}^+)^3$ to a Moonshine type VOA to give a new existence proof of a finite simple group of Monster type. The proof is relatively direct. Our methods depend on VOA…
We classify all finite groups such that all irreducible character degrees appear with multiplicity at most $2$. As a consequence, we prove that the largest group with at most $2$ irreducible characters of the same degree is the Baby…
We consider a left-transient random walk in a random environment on Z that will be disturbed by cookies inducing a drift to the right of strength 1. The number of cookies per site is i.i.d. and independent of the environment. Criteria for…
Various forms of sorting problems have been studied over the years. Recently, two kinds of sorting puzzle apps are popularized. In these puzzles, we are given a set of bins filled with colored units, balls or water, and some empty bins.…
This paper provides a brief write-up showing that for any finite state game, a disjunctive number $x$ will eventually win that game. The proof techniques here are well known and this result follows immediately from folklore results in graph…
We employ the recently developed hybrid and mmgroup computational models for groups to calculate the character table of $N(\rm{2B}^5) \cong 2^{5+10+20}.( \rm{S}_3 \times \rm{L}_5 {2} )$, a maximal subgroup of the Monster sporadic simple…
The deduction game is a variation of the game of cops and robber on graphs in which searchers must capture an invisible evader in at most one move. Searchers know each others' initial locations, but can only communicate if they are on the…
Recursed is a 2D puzzle platform video game featuring treasure chests that, when jumped into, instantiate a room that can later be exited (similar to function calls), optionally generating a jar that returns back to that room (similar to…
We study the excited random walk, in which a walk that is at a site that contains cookies eats one cookie and then hops to the right with probability p and to the left with probability q=1-p. If the walk hops onto an empty site, there is no…
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the idea of triangular Ramsey numbers and provide values as well as upper and lower bounds for them. To do this, the combinatorial game Mines is introduced; after some necessary theorems about…
We calculate the "strange quark content of the nucleon", <N| s s_bar |N>, which is important for interpreting the results of some dark matter detection experiments. The method is to evaluate quark-line disconnected correlations on the MILC…
In this paper we analyze a variant of the pursuit-evasion game on a graph $G$ where the intruder occupies a vertex, is allowed to move to adjacent vertices or remain in place, and is 'invisible' to the searcher, meaning that the searcher…
In formal languages and automata theory, the magic number problem can be formulated as follows: for a given integer n, is it possible to find a number d in the range [n,2^n] such that there is no minimal deterministic finite automaton with…
The 30 MacMahon colored cubes have each face painted with one of six colors and every color appears on at least one face. One puzzle involving these cubes is to create a $2\times2\times2$ model with eight distinct MacMahon cubes to recreate…
In this study, we investigate three-dimensional chocolate bar games, which are variants of the game of Chomp. A three-dimensional chocolate bar is a three-dimensional array of cubes in which a bitter cubic box is present in some part of the…
We explore the Hunters and Rabbits game on the hypercube. In the process, we find the solution for all classes of graphs with an isoperimetric nesting property and find the exact hunter number of $Q^n$ to be $1+\sum\limits_{i=0}^{n-2}…
An interesting open problem in number theory asks whether it is possible to walk to infinity on primes, where each term in the sequence has one more digit than the previous. In this paper, we study its variation where we walk on the…
This paper is about the Coupon collector's problem. There are some coupons, or baseball cards, or other plastic knick-knacks that are put into bags of chips or under soda bottles, etc. A collector starts collecting these trinkets and wants…