Related papers: A Note on a Picture-Hanging Puzzle
In this article, we study the behavior of a broad family of real sequences derived from randomized one-pile subtraction games. For any subtraction set $S$, we allow any valid number of chips $s\in S$ to be removed at equal probability at…
The Number Rotation Puzzle (NRP) is a combination puzzle in which the goal is to rearrange a scrambled rectangular grid of numbers back into order via moves that consist of rotating square blocks of numbers of fixed size. Over all possible…
A grid poset -- or grid for short -- is a product of chains. We ask, what does a random linear extension of a grid look like? In particular, we show that the average "jump number," i.e., the number of times that two consecutive elements in…
It has been known for more than 300 years that the shape of an inelastic hanging cable, chain, or rope of uniform linear mass density is the graph of the hyperbolic cosine, up to scaling and shifting coordinates. But given two points at…
Let $N_n=\{1,2,...,n\}$. Elements are drawn from the set $N_n$ with replacement, assuming that each element has probability $1/n$ of being drawn. We determine the limiting distributions for the waiting time until the given portion of pairs…
The problem of ranking can be described as follows. We have a set of combinatorial objects $S$, such as, say, the k-subsets of n things, and we can imagine that they have been arranged in some list, say lexicographically, and we want to…
Suppose that pebbles are distributed on the vertices of a graph G. A pebbling step along an edge uv removes two pebbles from u and places one pebble on v. We introduce two new graph parameters: stack(G): the least integer t such that every…
An overlap representation is an assignment of sets to the vertices of a graph in such a way that two vertices are adjacent if and only if the sets assigned to them overlap. The overlap number of a graph is the minimum number of elements…
Given a finite group with a generating subset there is a well-established notion of length for a group element given in terms of its minimal length expression as a product of elements from the generating set. Recently, certain quantities…
The problem of reconstructing a sequence of independent and identically distributed symbols from a set of equal size, consecutive, fragments, as well as a dependent reference sequence, is considered. First, in the regime in which the…
A hole is a chordless cycle with at least four vertices. A pan is a graph which consists of a hole and a single vertex with precisely one neighbor on the hole. An even hole is a hole with an even number of vertices. We prove that a (pan,…
Consider a random word $X^n=(X_1,\ldots ,X_n)$ in an alphabet consisting of $4$ letters, with the letters viewed either as $A$, $U$, $G$ and $C$ (i.e., nucleotides in an RNA sequence) or $\alpha$, $\bar{\alpha}$, $\beta$ and $\bar{\beta}$…
We prove a lower bound on the length of the longest $j$-tight cycle in a $k$-uniform binomial random hypergraph for any $2 \le j \le k-1$. We first prove the existence of a $j$-tight path of the required length. The standard "sprinkling"…
A composition of a nonnegative integer (n) is a sequence of positive integers whose sum is (n). A composition is palindromic if it is unchanged when its terms are read in reverse order. We provide a generating function for the number of…
The hat guessing number of a graph is a parameter related to the hat guessing game for graphs introduced by Winkler. In this paper, we show that graphs of sufficiently large hat guessing number must contain arbitrary trees and arbitrarily…
Given a polygon $H$ in the plane, the art gallery problem calls for fining the smallest set of points in $H$ from which every other point in $H$ is seen. We give a deterministic algorithm that, given any polygon $H$ with $h$ holes, $n$…
We analyze Solo Chess puzzles, where the input is an $n \times n$ board containing some standard Chess pieces of the same color, and the goal is to make a sequence of capture moves to reduce down to a single piece. Prior work analyzes this…
Let $X=(V,E)$ be a finite simple connected graph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges. A configuration is an assignment of one of two colors, black or white, to each edge of $X.$ A move applied to a configuration is to select a black edge…
Replicability requires that algorithmic conclusions remain consistent when rerun on independently drawn data. A central structural question is composition: given $k$ problems each admitting a $\rho$-replicable algorithm with sample…
The hat guessing number $HG(G)$ of a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices is defined in terms of the following game: $n$ players are placed on the $n$ vertices of $G$, each wearing a hat whose color is arbitrarily chosen from a set of $q$ possible…