Related papers: A Note on a Picture-Hanging Puzzle
We propose a new type of approximate counting algorithms for the problems of enumerating the number of independent sets and proper colorings in low degree graphs with large girth. Our algorithms are not based on a commonly used Markov chain…
We prove that elements of the Hanoi Towers groups $\mathcal{H}_m$ have depth bounded from above by a poly-logarithmic function $O(\log^{m-2} n)$, where $n$ is the length of an element. Therefore the word problem in groups $\mathcal{H}_m$ is…
Given a graph G and an integer k, the objective of the $\Pi$-Contraction problem is to check whether there exists at most k edges in G such that contracting them in G results in a graph satisfying the property $\Pi$. We investigate the…
How far off the edge of the table can we reach by stacking $n$ identical, homogeneous, frictionless blocks of length 1? A classical solution achieves an overhang of $1/2 H_n$, where $H_n ~ \ln n$ is the $n$th harmonic number. This solution…
The group of alternating colored permutations is the natural analogue of the classical alternating group, inside the wreath product $\mathbb{Z}_r \wr S_n$. We present a 'Coxeter-like' presentation for this group and compute the length…
Given a finitely generated group with generating set $S$, we study the cogrowth sequence, which is the number of words of length $n$ over the alphabet $S$ that are equal to one. This is related to the probability of return for walks the…
We relate the computational complexity of finite strings to universal representations of their underlying symmetries. First, Boolean functions are classified using the universal covering topologies of the circuits which enumerate them. A…
Dividing asks about inconsistency along indiscernible sequences. In order to study the finer structure of simple theories without much dividing, the authors recently introduced shearing, which essentially asks about inconsistency along…
Let $\mathcal A$ be an $\mathbb F$-algebra and let $\mathcal S$ be its generating set. The length of $\mathcal S$ is the smallest number $k$ such that $\mathcal A$ equals the $\mathbb F$-linear span of all products of length at most $k$ of…
Let a stick be broken at random at n-1 points to form n pieces. We consider three problems on forming k-gons with k out of these n pieces, and show how a statistical approach, through a linear transformation of variables, yields simple…
A composition of $n\in\NN$ is an ordered collection of one or more positive integers whose sum is $n$. The number of summands is called the number of parts of the composition. A palindromic composition of $n$ is a composition of $n$ in…
For each natural number $n$, we consider the subgroup $\mathcal{R}_n$ of Homeo$_+[0,1]$ made by the elements that are linear except for a subset whose Cantor-Bendixson rank is less than or equal to $n$. These groups of generalized…
We prove that a uniformly random automaton with $n$ states on a 2-letter alphabet has a synchronizing word of length $O(n^{1/2}\log n)$ with high probability (w.h.p.). That is to say, w.h.p. there exists a word $\omega$ of such length, and…
We study the formation of knots on a macroscopic ball-chain, which is shaken on a horizontal plate at 12 times the acceleration of gravity. We find that above a certain critical length, the knotting probability is independent of chain…
An avoidance pattern where the letters within an occurrence of which are required to be adjacent is referred to as a subword. In this paper, we enumerate members of the set NC_n of non-crossing partitions of length n according to the number…
In this paper, we continue the study of the generator graph of a group. In 2023, Tacbobo [9] defined the generator graph of a nontrivial group to be the graph whose vertices are the elements of the group, with two vertices being adjacent if…
A superpermutation on $n$ symbols is a string that contains each of the $n!$ permutations of the $n$ symbols as a contiguous substring. The shortest superpermutation on $n$ symbols was conjectured to have length $\sum_{i=1}^n i!$. The…
The generalised random graph contains $n$ vertices with positive i.i.d. weights. The probability of adding an edge between two vertices is increasing in their weights. We require the weight distribution to have finite second moments and…
The Harary-Hill Conjecture states that for $n\geq 3$ every drawing of $K_n$ has at least \begin{align*} H(n) :=…
Let F_2 denote the free group of rank 2. Our main technical result of independent interest is: for any element u of F_2, there is g in F_2 such that no cyclically reduced image of u under an automorphism of F_2 contains g as a subword. We…