Related papers: Sumplete is Hard, Even with Two Different Numbers
We study the puzzle graphs of hexagonal sliding puzzles of various shapes and with various numbers of holes. The puzzle graph is a combinatorial model which captures the solvability and the complexity of sequential mechanical puzzles.…
We extend the study of the 2-Solo Chess problem which was first introduced by Aravind, Misra, and Mittal in 2022. 2-Solo Chess is a single-player variant of chess in which the player must clear the board via captures such that only one…
This project investigates the potential of computers to solve complex tasks such as games. The paper proves that the complexity of a generalized version of spider solitaire is NP-Complete and uses much of structure of the proof that…
We consider a problem introduced by Mossel and Ross [Shotgun assembly of labeled graphs, arXiv:1504.07682]. Suppose a random $n\times n$ jigsaw puzzle is constructed by independently and uniformly choosing the shape of each "jig" from $q$…
The Generalized Sliding-Tile Puzzle (GSTP), allowing many square tiles on a board to move in parallel while enforcing natural geometric collision constraints on the movement of neighboring tiles, provide a high-fidelity mathematical model…
In this work, we prove the NP-completeness of two variants of tokenisation, defined as the problem of compressing a dataset to at most $\delta$ symbols by either finding a vocabulary directly (direct tokenisation), or selecting a sequence…
A matching is said to be disconnected if the saturated vertices induce a disconnected subgraph and induced if the saturated vertices induce a 1-regular graph. The disconnected and induced matching numbers are defined as the maximum…
We study a family of sorting match puzzles on grids, which we call permutation match puzzles. In this puzzle, each row and column of a $n \times n$ grid is labeled with an ordering constraint -- ascending (A) or descending (D) -- and the…
Shellings of simplicial complexes have long been a useful tool in topological and algebraic combinatorics. Shellings of a complex expose a large amount of information in a helpful way, but are not easy to construct, often requiring deep…
An additive-multiplicative magic square is a square grid of numbers whose rows, columns, and long diagonals all have the same sum (called the magic sum) and the same product (called the magic product). There are numerous open problems about…
In this paper we provide a formalism, Sudoku logic, in which a solution is logically deducible if for every cell of the grid we can provably exclude all but a single option. We prove that the deductive system of Sudoku logic is sound and…
Over the last decade, Sudoku, a combinatorial number-placement puzzle, has become a favorite pastimes of many all around the world. In this puzzle, the task is to complete a partially filled $9 \times 9$ square with numbers 1 through 9,…
A plane drawing of a graph is {\em cylindrical} if there exist two concentric circles that contain all the vertices of the graph, and no edge intersects (other than at its endpoints) any of these circles. The {\em cylindrical crossing…
The 15 puzzle is a classic reconfiguration puzzle with fifteen uniquely labeled unit squares within a $4 \times 4$ board in which the goal is to slide the squares (without ever overlapping) into a target configuration. By generalizing the…
A given subset $A$ of natural numbers is said to be complete if every element of $\N$ is the sum of distinct terms taken from $A$. This topic is strongly connected to the knapsack problem which is known to be NP complete. The main goal of…
A perfect number is a number whose divisors add up to twice the number itself. The existence of odd perfect numbers is a millennia-old unsolved problem. This note proposes a proof of the nonexistence of odd perfect numbers. More generally,…
Given a tiling of a 2D grid with several types of tiles, we can count for every row and column how many tiles of each type it intersects. These numbers are called the_projections_. We are interested in the problem of reconstructing a tiling…
A c-coloring of G(n,m)=n x m is a mapping of G(n,m) into {1,...,c} such that no four corners forming a rectangle have the same color. In 2009 a challenge was proposed via the internet to find a 4-coloring of G(17,17). This attracted…
A secure set $S$ in a graph is defined as a set of vertices such that for any $X\subseteq S$ the majority of vertices in the neighborhood of $X$ belongs to $S$. It is known that deciding whether a set $S$ is secure in a graph is…
In the "Game about Squares" the task is to push unit squares on an integer lattice onto corresponding dots. A square can only be moved into one given direction. When a square is pushed onto a lattice point with an arrow the direction of the…