Related papers: Quad Squares
In a recent article, we gave a full characterization of matrices that can be decomposed as a linear combination of two idempotents with prescribed coefficients. In this one, we use those results to improve on a recent theorem of V.…
A tournament is an orientation of a complete graph. We say that a vertex $x$ in a tournament $\vec T$ controls another vertex $y$ if there exists a directed path of length at most two from $x$ to $y$. A vertex is called a king if it…
An effective divisor D on a smooth (compact complex) surface X is called even, if its class $[D] \in H^2(X,\Z)$ is divisible by 2. D may be assumed reduced w.l.o.g. Then D being even is equivalent to the existence of a double cover $Y \to…
We show the 3 by 3 magic square of squares problem equivalent to solving quartic polynomials with certain factorization constraints over an abelian extension of the rationals. We analyze a particular case in which said extension is assumed…
Let $V$ be an infinite-dimensional vector space over a field. In a previous article, we have shown that every endomorphism of $V$ splits into the sum of four square-zero ones but also into the sum of four idempotent ones. Here, we study…
We study the existence of invariant quadrics for a class of systems of difference equations in ${\mathbb R}^n$ defined by linear fractionals sharing denominator. Such systems can be described in terms of some square matrix $A$ and we prove…
Hadamard matrices are square $n\times n$ matrices whose entries are ones and minus ones and whose rows are orthogonal to each other with respect to the standard scalar product in $\Bbb R^n$. Each Hadamard matrix can be transformed to a…
In this paper we mainly study sums of four rational squares with certain restrictions. Let $\mathbb Q_{\ge0}$ be the set of nonnegative rational numbers. We establish the following four-square theorem for rational numbers: For any…
We study additive quaternary codes whose parameters are close to those of the extended cyclic [12; 6; 6]4-code or to the quaternary linear codes generated by the elliptic quadric in PG(3; 4) or its dual. In particular we characterize those…
The number of standard Young tableaux possible of shape corresponding to a partition $\lambda$ is called the dimension of the partition and is denoted by $f^{\lambda}$. Partitions with odd dimensions were enumerated by McKay and were…
We show that a pair of orthogonal partial latin squares of order $n$ can be embedded in a pair of orthogonal latin squares of order at most $16n^4$ and all orders greater than or equal to $48n^4$. This paper provides the first direct…
A magic labelling of a set system is a labelling of its points by distinct positive integers so that every set of the system has the same sum, the magic sum. Examples are magic squares (the sets are the rows, columns, and diagonals) and…
We study triples {a,b,c} of distinct nonzero rational numbers such that a+1,b+1,c+1,ab+1,ac+1,bc+1 and abc+1 are all perfect squares. We prove that there exist infinitely many such triples. In contrast, we show that no triple of positive…
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…
A square matrix is said to be circular bidiagonal whenever (i) each nonzero entry is on the diagonal, or the subdiagonal, or in the top-right corner; (ii) each subdiagonal entry is nonzero, and the entry in the top-right corner is nonzero.…
Let $f_1,\dots,f_m$ be polynomials in $n$ variables with coefficients in a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$. We estimate the number of points $\underline{x}$ in $\mathbb{F}_q^n$ such that each value $f_i(\underline{x})$ is a nonzero square in…
We determine all integers $n$ such that $n^2$ has at most three base-$q$ digits for $q \in \{2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 16 \}$. More generally, we show that all solutions to equations of the shape $$ Y^2 = t^2 + M \cdot q^m + N \cdot q^n, $$ where $q$…
We show that the maximal number of (real) lines in a (real) nonsingular spatial quartic surface is 64 (respectively, 56). We also give a complete projective classification of all quartics containing more than 52 lines: all such quartics are…
In this paper, we prove some results of restricted sums of four squares using arithmetic of quaternions in the ring of Lipschitz integers. For example, we show that every nonnegative integer $n$ can be written as $x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2}+t^{2}$…
A quadrilateral is said to be rational if its four sides, the two diagonals and the area are all expressible by rational numbers. The problem of constructing rational quadrilaterals dates back to the seventh century when Brahmagupta gave an…