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Questions tagged [combinatorial-designs]

Design theory is the subfield of combinatorics concerning the existence and construction of highly symmetric arrangements. Finite projective planes, latin squares, and Steiner triple systems are examples of designs.

6 votes
0 answers
98 views

What is the largest subgraph of the Kneser graph which has a small chromatic number?

While trying to characterize constraint satisfaction problems which can be solved by the Linear Programming relaxation, I've run into a few perplexing puzzles related to the existence of certain ...
zeb's user avatar
  • 8,633
15 votes
1 answer
884 views

Scrambling a “Connections” grid

Given a 4-by-4 array of distinct words, is it possible to scramble the array in four different ways in such a fashion that each possible word-pair appears adjacently in one of the five arrays (the ...
James Propp's user avatar
  • 19.6k
3 votes
1 answer
290 views

Smallest number of subsets whose squares cover the whole square

Let $2 \leq k \leq n$ be integers, let $[n] := \{1,2,\ldots,n\}$, and for a subset $A \subseteq [n]$ let $A^2 := A \times A$ be the Cartesian product of $A$ with itself and let $|A|$ denote the ...
Nathaniel Johnston's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
77 views

Software reference for combinatorial design

If one were to require quick and easy access to sizeable latin squares, room squares, Steiner systems, designs, balanced block designs... where to look, what software to use?
5th decile's user avatar
  • 1,451
4 votes
0 answers
65 views

Existence of finite 3-dimensional hyperbolic balanced geometry

Together with @TarasBanakh we faced the problem described in the title. Let me start with definitions. A linear space is a pair $(S,\mathcal L)$ consisting of a set $S$ and a family $\mathcal L$ of ...
Ihromant's user avatar
  • 491
0 votes
0 answers
40 views

Minimal m such that m x K_n is decomposable into disjoint C_3

For a given $n$, is there a way to calculate the minimal value $m$ such that you can decompose the multigraph: $$m \times K_n$$ into disjoint 3-cycles? What about a more general result applied to ...
Sebastian's user avatar
  • 101
2 votes
2 answers
313 views

A graphic representation of classical unitals on 28 points

I would like to understand the geometry of the classical unitals. They are block designs containing $q^3+1$ points and whose blocks have cardinality $q+1$, where $q$ is a prime power. For $q=2$ (if I ...
Taras Banakh's user avatar
  • 41.1k
5 votes
5 answers
554 views

Is every uniform hyperbolic linear space infinite?

I start with definitions. Definition 1. A linear space is a pair $(X,\mathcal L)$ consisting of a set $X$ and a family $\mathcal L$ of subsets of $X$ satisfying three axioms: (L1) for any distinct ...
Taras Banakh's user avatar
  • 41.1k
11 votes
1 answer
384 views

Does every finite affine plane have the doubling property?

Definition 1. An affine plane is a pair $(X,\mathcal L)$ consisting of a set $X$ and a family $\mathcal L$ of subsets of $X$ called lines which satisfy the following axioms: Any distinct points $x,y\...
Taras Banakh's user avatar
  • 41.1k
2 votes
1 answer
86 views

One question about nega-cyclic Hadamard matrices

Let $n$ be a multiple of $4$, is there any $n \times n$ negacyclic Hadamard matrix? If yes - how to construct it? If no - why? Here an $n \times n$ nega-cyclic matrix is a square matrix of the form: \...
user369335's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
137 views

On the half-skew-centrosymmetric Hadamard matrices

Definition 1: A Hadamard matrix is an $n\times n$ matrix $H$ whose entries are either $1$ or $-1$ and whose rows are mutually orthogonal. Definition 2: A matrix $A$ is half-skew-centrosymmetric if ...
user369335's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
157 views

"JigSaw Puzzle" on Set Family

One of my research problem can be reduced to a question of the following form Given a set family $\mathcal{F}$ of $[n]$ , such that every element of $[n]$ lies in exactly $K$ sets in $\mathcal{F}$, ...
abacaba's user avatar
  • 374
0 votes
0 answers
82 views

Bounds for smallest non-trivial designs

Given $s>t\ge 2$, let $N(s,t)$ be the smallest integer $n>s$ such that there exists an “$(n;s;t;1)$-design” (i.e., a collection of $s$-subsets $e_1,\dots,e_m$ of $[n]:=\{1,\dots,n\}$, such that ...
Zach Hunter's user avatar
  • 3,469
1 vote
1 answer
135 views

On the existence of symmetric matrices with prescribed number of 1's on each row

We are considering the following problem: Given an integer $n$ and a sequence of integers $r_i,\ 1\le i\le n$, with $0\le r_i\le n-1$ does there exists a symmetric matrix $A$ such that the diagonal ...
Jeremiah's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
145 views

How to construct a skew Hadamard matrix of order 756?

Where can I find the construction for a skew Hadamard matrix of order 756? According to multiple papers (e.g. Koukouvinos and Stylianou - On skew-Hadamard matrices and Seberry - On skew Hadamard ...
Matteo Cati's user avatar

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