Related papers: The $n$-queens problem

Let $G$ be a graph without isolated vertices. The total domination number of $G$ is the minimum number of vertices that can dominate all vertices in $G$, and the paired domination number of $G$ is the minimum number of vertices in a…

Consider $n$ points evenly spaced on a circle, and a path of $n-1$ chords that uses each point once. There are $m=\lfloor n/2\rfloor$ possible chord lengths, so the path defines a multiset of $n-1$ elements drawn from $\{1,2,\ldots,m\}$.…

If the product of two monic polynomials with real nonnegative coefficients has all coefficients equal to 0 or 1, does it follow that all the coefficients of the two factors are also equal to 0 or 1? Here is an equivalent formulation of this…

In this short expository article, we describe a mathematical tool called the probabilistic method, and illustrate its elegance and beauty through proving a few well-known results. Particularly, we give an unconventional probabilistic proof…

We prove a generalised Ramsey--Tur\'an theorem for matchings, which (a) simultaneously generalises the Cockayne--Lorimer Theorem (Ramsey for matchings) and the Erd\H{o}s--Gallai Theorem (Tur\'an for matchings), and (b) is a generalised…

The Mondrian problem consists of dissecting a square of side length $n\in \NN$ into non-congruent rectangles with natural length sides such that the difference $d(n)$ between the largest and the smallest areas of the rectangles partitioning…

We study the Levine hat problem, a cooperative puzzle introduced by Lionel Levine in 2010, in which $n \geq 2$ players must simultaneously identify a black hat on their own infinite stack, each seeing only their teammates' stacks. While the…

Confirming a conjecture of Vera T. S\'os in a very strong sense, we give a complete solution to Tur\'an's hypergraph problem for the Fano plane. That is we prove for $n\ge 8$ that among all $3$-uniform hypergraphs on $n$ vertices not…

Let $D(n)$ be the number of pairwise disjoint Steiner quadruple systems. A simple counting argument shows that $D(n) \leq n-3$ and a set of $n-3$ such systems is called a large set. No nontrivial large set was constructed yet, although it…

We prove the computational intractability of rotating and placing $n$ square tiles into a $1 \times n$ array such that adjacent tiles are compatible--either equal edge colors, as in edge-matching puzzles, or matching tab/pocket shapes, as…

Computing topological invariants of 3-manifolds is generally intractable, yet specialized algebraic structures can enable efficient algorithms. For Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev (WRT) invariants of torus bundles, we exploit the non-commutative…

In the noisy query model, the (binary) return value of every query (possibly repeated) is independently flipped with some fixed probability $p \in (0, 1/2)$. In this paper, we obtain tight bounds on the noisy query complexity of several…

The Rubik's Cube is the most popular puzzle in the world. Two of its studied aspects are God's Number, the minimum number of turns necessary to solve any state, and the first law of cubology, a solvability criterion. We modify previous…

Suppose that $n$ is $0$ or $4$ modulo $6$. We show that there are infinitely many primes of the form $p^2 + nq^2$ with both $p$ and $q$ prime, and obtain an asymptotic for their number. In particular, when $n = 4$ we verify the `Gaussian…

In this paper, it is established that every sufficiently large positive integer $n$ subject to $n\equiv0\pmod2$ can be represented as a sum of one square of prime and seventeen fifth powers of primes, which gives an enhancement upon the…

We study the number $M_n(T)$ be the number of integer $n\times n$ matrices $A$ with entries bounded in absolute value by $T$ such that the Galois group of characteristic polynomial of $A$ is not the full symmetric group $S_n$. One knows…

The Tur\'{a}n number $ex(n,H)$ of a graph $H$ is the maximum number of edges in any $H$-free graph on $n$ vertices. The triangular pyramid of $k$-layers, denoted by $TP_k$, is a generalization of a triangle. The Tur\'an problems of a…

Wythoff Nim aka Corner the Lady is a classic combinatorial game. A Queen is placed on an infinite chess board and two players take alternate turns, moving the Queen closer to the corner. The first player that corners the Queen wins. What…

This paper intends to solve the Transversal achievement on an n times n grid problem proposed by Dr. Martin Erickson. We approach the problem using mathematical induction and case analysis and prove the hypothesis that for all n greater…

The Graceful Tree Conjecture of Rosa from 1967 asserts that the vertices of each tree T of order n can be injectively labelled by using the numbers {1,2,...,n} in such a way that the absolute differences induced on the edges are pairwise…