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Unanswered Questions

4,288 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
55 votes
0 answers
3k views

On the first sequence without triple in arithmetic progression

In this Numberphile video (from 3:36 to 7:41), Neil Sloane explains an amazing sequence: It is the lexicographically first among the sequences of positive integers without triple in arithmetic ...
51 votes
0 answers
2k views

Does every triangle-free graph with maximum degree at most 6 have a 5-colouring?

A very specific case of Reed's Conjecture Reed's $\omega$,$\Delta$, $\chi$ conjecture proposes that every graph has $\chi \leq \lceil \tfrac 12(\Delta+1+\omega)\rceil$. Here $\chi$ is the chromatic ...
48 votes
0 answers
2k views

Concerning proofs from the axiom of choice that ℝ³ admits surprising geometrical decompositions: Can we prove there is no Borel decomposition?

This question follows up on a comment I made on Joseph O'Rourke's recent question, one of several questions here on mathoverflow concerning surprising geometric partitions of space using the axiom of ...
45 votes
0 answers
3k views

A = B (but not quite); 3-d arrays with multiple recurrences

Many years ago, I discovered the remarkable array (apparently originally discovered by Ramanujan) 1 1 3 2 10 15 6 40 105 105 24 196 700 1260 945 ...
42 votes
0 answers
805 views

A kaleidoscopic coloring of the plane

Problem. Is there a partition $\mathbb R^2=A\sqcup B$ of the Euclidean plane into two Lebesgue measurable sets such that for any disk $D$ of the unit radius we get $\lambda(A\cap D)=\lambda(B\cap D)=\...
41 votes
0 answers
1k views

Is there anything to the obvious analogy between Joyal's combinatorial species and Goodwillie calculus?

Combinatorial species and calculus of functors both take the viewpoint that many interesting functors can be expanded in a kind of Taylor series. Many operations familiar from actual calculus can be ...
36 votes
0 answers
2k views

3-colorings of the unit distance graph of $\Bbb R^3$

Let $\Gamma$ be the unit distance graph of $\Bbb R^3$: points $(x,y)$ form an edge if $|x,y|=1$. Let $(A,B,C,D)$ be a unit side rhombus in the plane, with a transcendental diagonal, e.g. $A = (\alpha,...
35 votes
0 answers
949 views

Orthogonal vectors with entries from $\{-1,0,1\}$

Let $\mathbf{1}$ be the all-ones vector, and suppose $\mathbf{1}, \mathbf{v_1}, \mathbf{v_2}, \ldots, \mathbf{v_{n-1}} \in \{-1,0,1\}^n$ are mutually orthogonal non-zero vectors. Does it follow that $...
32 votes
0 answers
2k views

The easily bored sequence

If we want to compare the repetitiveness of two finite words, it looks reasonable, first of all, to consider more repetitive the word repeating more times one of its factors, and secondarily to ...
32 votes
0 answers
3k views

Vertex coloring inherited from perfect matchings (motivated by quantum physics)

Added (19.01.2021): Dustin Mixon wrote a blog post about the question where he reformulated and generalized the question. Added (25.12.2020): I made a youtube video to explain the question in detail. ...
32 votes
0 answers
914 views

Isometric embeddings of finite subsets of $\ell_2$ into infinite-dimensional Banach spaces

Question: Does there exist a finite subset $F$ of $\ell_2$ and an infinite-dimensional Banach space $X$ such that $F$ does not admit an isometric embedding into $X$? There are some results of the ...
32 votes
0 answers
1k views

Minimal number of intersections in a convex $n$-gon?

For a convex polygon $P$, draw all the diagonals of $P$ and consider the intersection points made by those diagonals. Let $f(n)$ be the minimal number of such intersections where $P$ ranges over all ...
32 votes
0 answers
2k views

A Combinatorial Abstraction for The "Polynomial Hirsch Conjecture"

Consider $t$ disjoint families of subsets of {1,2,…,n}, ${\cal F}_1,{\cal F_2},\dots {\cal F_t}$ . Suppose that (*) For every $i \lt j \lt k$ and every $R \in {\cal F}_i$, and $T \in {\cal F}_k$, ...
31 votes
2 answers
2k views

Tiling of the plane with manholes

Some shapes, such as the disk or the Releaux triangle can be used as manholes, that is, it is a curve of constant width. (The width between two parallel tangents to the curve are independent of the ...
30 votes
0 answers
1k views

Curves on potatoes

On twitter recently, Robin Houston brought up this problem from a mathematical puzzle book of Peter Winkler: The puzzle is attributed to the book "The mathemagician and pied puzzler", and ...

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