Related papers: MacMahon Partition Analysis: A discrete approach t…
Break a stick at random at $n-1$ points to obtain $n$ pieces. We give an explicit formula for the probability that every choice of $k$ segments from this broken stick can form a $k$-gon, generalizing similar work. The method we use can be…
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…
MacMahon introduced partition analysis in his book ``Combinatory Analysis'' as a computational technique for solving problems related to systems of linear Diophantine equations and inequalities. This paper aims to develop a fundamental…
Regard the closed interval $[0,1]$ as a stick. Partition $[0,1]$ into $n+1$ different intervals $I_1, \ \dots \ , I_{n+1},$ where $n \geq 2,$ which represent smaller sticks. The classical Broken Stick problem asks to find the probability…
A full solution to the recently proposed problem of determining the probability that no $k$-gon can be built from $n$ independently and uniformly chosen sticks in $[0,1]$ is proposed. This extends the known results for triangles and…
We present a variation of the broken stick problem in which $n$ stick lengths are sampled uniformly at random. We prove that the probability that no three sticks can form a triangle is the reciprocal of the product of the first $n$…
MacMahon showed that the generating function for partitions into at most $k$ parts can be decomposed into a partial fractions-type sum indexed by the partitions of $k$. In this present work, a generalization of MacMahon's result is given,…
We present two complementary proofs that, if the lengths of $n$ sticks are sampled at random, then the probability that no $p+1$ sticks can form a $(p+1)$-sided polygon can be expressed as the product of the reciprocals of a series of terms…
Solutions to a linear Diophantine system, or lattice points in a rational convex polytope, are important concepts in algebraic combinatorics and computational geometry. The enumeration problem is fundamental and has been well studied,…
We study some combinatorial properties of higher-dimensional partitions which generalize plane partitions. We present a natural bijection between $d$-dimensional partitions and $d$-dimensional arrays of nonnegative integers. This bijection…
Five simple guidelines are proposed to compute the generating function for the nonnegative integer solutions of a system of linear inequalities. In contrast to other approaches, the emphasis is on deriving recurrences. We show how to use…
In this paper, we characterize planar point sets that can be partitioned into disjoint polygons of arbitrarily specified sizes. We provide an algorithm to construct such a partition, if it exists, in polynomial time. We show that this…
We study cylindric partitions with two-element profiles using MacMahon's partition analysis. We find explicit formulas for the generating functions of the number of cylindric partitions by first finding the recurrences using partition…
In the article by Edward et al. \cite{Sudbury2025}, it was shown that the probability that no three sticks randomly chosen from the unit interval can form a triangle equals the reciprocal of the product of the first $n$ Fibonacci numbers.…
The statistical physics approach to the number partioning problem, a classical NP-hard problem, is both simple and rewarding. Very basic notions and methods from statistical mechanics are enough to obtain analytical results for the phase…
The number of plane partitions contained in a given box was shown by MacMahon to be given by a simple product formula. By a simple bijection, this formula also enumerates lozenge tilings of hexagons of side-lengths $a,b,c,a,b,c$ (in cyclic…
We study the problem of partitioning a given simple polygon $P$ into a minimum number of connected polygonal pieces, each of bounded size. We describe a general technique for constructing such partitions that works for several notions of…
The broken stick problem is the following classical question. You have a segment $[0,1]$. You choose two points on this segment at random. They divide the segment into three smaller segments. Show that the probability that the three…
Recently, many authors have investigated how various partition statistics distribute as the size of the partition grows. In this work, we look at a particular statistic arising from the recent rejuvenation of MacMahon's partition analysis.…
Using a calculus of variations approach, we determine the shape of a typical plane partition in a large box (i.e., a plane partition chosen at random according to the uniform distribution on all plane partitions whose solid Young diagrams…