Related papers: Latin Puzzles
We generalize the notion of orthogonal latin squares to colorings of simple graphs. Two $n$-colorings of a graph are said to be \emph{orthogonal} if whenever two vertices share a color in one coloring they have distinct colors in the other…
In this paper we give a novel solution to a classical completion problem for square matrices. This problem was studied by many authors through time, and it is completely solved in [2, 3]. In this paper we relate this classical problem to a…
A classical question in combinatorics is the following:\ given a partial Latin square $P$, when can we complete $P$ to a Latin square $L$? In this paper, we investigate the class of \textbf{$\epsilon$-dense partial Latin squares}:\ partial…
A partial Latin square of order $n$ can be represented by a $3$-dimensional chess-board of size $n\times n\times n$ with at most $n^2$ non-attacking rooks. In Latin squares, a subsystem and its most distant mate together have as many rooks…
This paper presents a systematic method to solve difficult 9 x 9 Sudoku puzzles by hand. While computer algorithms exist to solve these puzzles, these algorithms are not good for human's to use because they involve too many steps and…
Given a partition $h_1+h_2+\dots+h_k = n$, a latin square of order $n$ with pairwise disjoint subsquares of orders $h_1,\dots ,h_k$ is called a realization. When the values $h_i$ are of at most two sizes, the existence of a realization has…
Su-Doku, a popular combinatorial puzzle, provides an excellent testbench for heuristic explorations. Several interesting questions arise from its deceptively simple set of rules. How many distinct Su-Doku grids are there? How to find a…
Symmetries of a partial Latin square are determined by its autotopism group. Analogously to the case of Latin squares, given an isotopism $\Theta$, the cardinality of the set $\mathcal{PLS}_{\Theta}$ of partial Latin squares which are…
Quantum Latin squares are a generalization of classical Latin squares in quantum field and have wide applications in unitary error bases, mutually unbiased bases, $k$-uniform states and quantum error correcting codes. In this paper, we put…
Two latin squares are orthogonal if, when they are superimposed, every ordered pair of symbols appears exactly once. This definition extends naturally to `incomplete' latin squares each having a hole on the same rows, columns, and symbols.…
Jigsaw puzzle solving requires the rearrangement of unordered pieces into their original pose in order to reconstruct a coherent whole, often an image, and is known to be an intractable problem. While the possible impact of automatic puzzle…
We prove several results about substructures in Latin squares. First, we explain how to adapt our recent work on high-girth Steiner triple systems to the setting of Latin squares, resolving a conjecture of Linial that there exist Latin…
A latin square of order $n$ with pairwise disjoint subsquares of orders $h_1,\dots,h_k$ such that $h_1+\dots+h_k = n$ is known as a realization. The existence of realizations is a partially solved problem with a few general results for an…
The mathematical structure of the widely popular Sudoku puzzles is akin to typical hard constraint satisfaction problems that lie at the heart of many applications, including protein folding and the general problem of finding the ground…
We study the puzzle graphs of hexagonal sliding puzzles of various shapes and with various numbers of holes. The puzzle graph is a combinatorial model which captures the solvability and the complexity of sequential mechanical puzzles.…
In this lecture I will talk about three mathematical puzzles involving mathematics and computation that have preoccupied me over the years. The first puzzle is to understand the amazing success of the simplex algorithm for linear…
Codes with local permutation constraints are described. Belief propagation decoding is shown to require the computation of permanents, and trellis-based methods for computing the permanents are introduced. New insights into the asymptotic…
The New York Times (NYT) games have found widespread popularity in recent years and reportedly account for an increasing fraction of the newspaper's readership. In this paper, we bring the computational lens to the study of New York Times…
Consider a periodical (in two independent directions) tiling of the plane with polygons (faces). In this article we shall only give examples using squares, regular hexagons, equilateral triangles and parallelograms ("unions" of two…
A Latin square of order $n$ is an $n\times n$ matrix in which each row and column contains each of $n$ symbols exactly once. For $\epsilon>0$, we show that with high probability a uniformly random Latin square of order $n$ has no proper…