Related papers: Almost every Latin square has a decomposition into…
Counting the types of squares rather than their occurrences, we consider the problem of bounding the number of distinct squares in a string. Fraenkel and Simpson showed in 1998 that a string of length n contains at most 2n distinct squares.…
A Latin square of order $n$ is an $n \times n$ matrix of $n$ symbols, such that each symbol occurs exactly once in each row and column. For an odd prime power $q$ let $\mathbb{F}_q$ denote the finite field of order $q$. A quadratic Latin…
We study the dissection of a square into congruent convex polygons. Yuan \emph{et al.} [Dissecting the square into five congruent parts, Discrete Math. \textbf{339} (2016) 288-298] asked whether, if the number of tiles is a prime number…
This paper is concerned with the problem of finding $n$ distinct squares such that, on excluding any one of them, the sum of the remaining $n-1$ squares is a square. While parametric solutions are known when $n=3$ and $n=4$, when $n > 4$,…
1. For many regular cardinals lambda (in particular, for all successors of singular strong limit cardinals, and for all successors of singular omega-limits), for all n in {2,3,4, ...} : There is a linear order L such that L^n has no…
A cubic surface in $P^3$ is known to contain 27 lines, out of which one can form 36 Schlafli double - sixes i.e., collections $l_1,...,l_6, l'_1,..., l'_6\}$ of 12 lines such that each $l_i$ meets only $l'_j, j\neq i$ and does not meet…
Let $s(n)$ denote the sum of the proper divisors of the natural number $n$. We show that the number of $n \leq x$ such that $s(n)$ is a sum of two squares has order of magnitude $x/\sqrt{\log x}$, which agrees with the count of $n \leq x$…
The following conjecture was proposed in 2010 by S. Lando. Let M and N be two unions of the same number of disjoint circles in a sphere. Then there exist two spheres in 3-space whose intersection is transversal and is a union of disjoint…
A $k$-plex of a latin square is a collection of cells representing each row, column, and symbol precisely $k$ times. The classic case of $k=1$ is more commonly known as a transversal. We introduce the concept of a $k$-weight, an integral…
Given a binary quasigroup $G$ of order $n$, a $d$-iterated quasigroup $G[d]$ is the $(d+1)$-ary quasigroup equal to the $d$-times composition of $G$ with itself. The Cayley table of every $d$-ary quasigroup is a $d$-dimensional latin…
Let $d\equiv 2\pmod 4$ be a square-free integer such that $x^2 - dy^2 =- 1$ and $x^2 - dy^2 = 6$ are solvable in integers. We prove the existence of infinitely many quadruples in $\mathbb{Z}[\sqrt{d}]$ with the property $D(n)$ when $n \in…
A subcycle of an Eulerian circuit is a sequence of edges that are consecutive in the circuit and form a cycle. We characterise the quartic planar graphs that admit Eulerian circuits avoiding 3-cycles and 4-cycles. From this, it follows that…
A "truncation" of Pascal's triangle is a triangular array of numbers that satisfies the usual Pascal recurrence but with a boundary condition that declares some terminal set of numbers along each row of the array to be zero. Presented here…
We show that k=w+2 mutually unbiased bases can be constructed in any square dimension d=s^2 provided that there are w mutually orthogonal Latin squares of order s. The construction combines the design-theoretic objects (k,s)-nets (which can…
In this paper we study collections of mutually nearly orthogonal Latin squares ($\text{MNOLS}$), which come from a modification of the orthogonal condition for mutually orthogonal Latin squares. In particular, we find the maximum $\mu$ such…
Applying results from partial difference sets, quadratic forms, and recent results of Brouwer and Van Dam, we construct the first known amorphic association scheme with negative Latin square type graphs and whose underlying set is a…
To any $n \times n$ Latin square $L$, we may associate a unique sequence of mutually orthogonal permutation matrices $P = P_1, P_2, ..., P_n$ such that $L = L(P) = \sum kP_k$. Brualdi and Dahl (2018) described a generalisation of a Latin…
A congruum was first defined by Leonardo Pisano in 1225 and it is defined as the common difference in an arithmetic progression of three perfect squares. Later that year in his book Liber Quadratorum, Pisano proved that congruums can never…
A word is square-free if it does not contain nonempty factors of the form $XX$. In 1906 Thue proved that there exist arbitrarily long square-free words over a $3$-letter alphabet. It was proved recently [7] that among these words there are…
Based on a previous generalization by the author of Latin squares to Latin boards, this paper generalizes partial Latin squares and related objects like partial Latin squares, completable partial Latin squares and Latin square puzzles. The…