List of open problems...
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Each entry of this list is an open problem, but it might have been solved by the time you see it!
Google lots before assuming otherwise.
Links are to introductory literature, not necessarily primary sources.
PROBLEMS
Kobon triangles
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How many disjoint triangular regions can result from drawing n distinct lines in the plane?
Kobon triangle problem [wiki]
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Specific Question: How many disjoint triangular regions can result from drawing 10 lines in the plane?
Best known answer: for 13 lines: 47, for 14 lines <= 54. [ mathworld ]
Sequence: 1, 2, 5, 7, 11, 15, 21, ... OPEN [ OEIS ?]
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Ribbon-Slice conjecture
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Is every slice knot a ribbon knot?
quanta
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Specific Question: Is there a smoothly slice knot which cannot be represented with only ribbon singularities?
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Snake in a Box
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What is the longest length of a simple path with no chords in the n-dimensional hypercube??
xkcd
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Specific Question: What is the longest length of a simple path with no chords in the 9-dimensional hypercube?
Sequence: 1, 2, 4, 7, 13, 26, 50, 98, ... OPEN [ OEIS ]
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Moore bounds
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Does a Moore graph with girth 5 and degree 57 exist?
Table
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Specific Question: Is there a degree 4 and diameter 3 graph with more than the best known example of 41 nodes (and less than the
the Moore bound of 53 nodes)?
Sequence: 1, 1, 4, 3, 13, 21, ... OPEN [ OEIS ]
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Affine line arrangments
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How many distinct line arrangements are there, on the plane, using n distinct lines,
up to parametric equivalence?
Affine line arrangements [wiki],
[ Notices ] (Forcey, page 2)
Oriented matroids. See Table 8.1 on page 165: [ Finschi]
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Specific Question: How many parametrically distinct line arrangements are there, on the plane, using 8 distinct lines?
Best known answer: for 7 lines: 37830 [ youtube ]
(N.J.A. Sloane)
Sequence: 1, 1, 2, 4, 9, 47, 791, 37830, ... OPEN [ OEIS ]
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Number of posets
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How many posets are there, up to isomorphism, with n elements?
Finite partially ordered sets [wiki]
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Specific Question: How many posets are there with 17 unlabeled elements?
Best known answer: for 16 elements: 4483130665195087
Sequence: 1, 1, 2, 5, 16, 63, 318, 2045, ... OPEN [ OEIS ]
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Number of affine plane arrangements in 3D
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How many plane arrangements are there in R^3 using n planes?
Affine hyperplane arrangements [wiki]
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Specific Question: How many plane arrangements are there in R^3 using 8 planes?
[stack exchange]
14 for four planes [illustration]
Best known answer: 1472049 for 7 planes
Sequence: 1, 1, 2, 5, 14, 74, 1854, 1472049 ... OPEN
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Ramsey numbers.
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What is the smallest number of people such that either k of them are mutual friends or k of them are mutual strangers?
Ramsey theory [wiki]
What is the smallest complete graph K_n with edges colored (red or blue)
such that there is either a red or a blue complete subgraph of size k?
We know that n = R(k,k) exists for any k.
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Specific Question: What is R(5,5)?
[wiki]
Best known answers: R(4,4) = 18, and 43 <= R(5,5) <= 48.
Conjectured Sequence: 0, 1, 2, 6, 18, 45, 102, 213, 426, 821, ... [ OEIS ]
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Snaky: winner or loser
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Is the 6-polyomino Snaky achievable (by player 1) on an infinite grid, or can it be blocked by player 2?
Combinatorial games [ wiki ]
What is the smallest grid on which Snaky can be achieved by player 1? [ jstor ] (Gardner)
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Specific Question: Can Snaky win on a 9 x 9 board?
Best known answer: Snaky is a loser on an 8 x 8 board. [ Research Gate ]
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Singmaster's conjecture
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What is the largest number of times any number > 1 can appear in Pascal's triangle?
Singmaster's conjecture [ wiki ]
What number n > 1 shows up as a combination more times than any other number?
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Specific Question: Are there any entries of Pascal's triangle that appear more than 8 times?
Best known answer: 3003 appears 8 times. (Unknown if any others appear 8 times.)
Sequence: 2, 3, 6, 10, 120, 120, 3003, 3003, ... OPEN [ OEIS ]
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Invertible (0,1)-Matrices
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How many n x n matrices are there with all entries 0 or 1, and with nonzero determinant?
How many n x n invertible (nonsingular) matrices are there with all entries 0 or 1?
[ Mathworld ]
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Specific Question: How many 9 x 9 invertible matrices are there with all entries 0 or 1?
Best known answer: There are 10160459763342013440 invertible 8 x 8 matrices with all entries 0 or 1.
Sequence: 1, 1, 6, 174, 22560, 12514320, ... OPEN [ OEIS ]
Bonus: what is the convex hull of these n x n matrices?
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Hadamard's maximal determinant problem
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What is the largest determinant of an n x n matrix with all entries 0 or 1?
[ wiki ]
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Specific Question: What is the largest determinant of an 22 x 22 matrix with all entries 0 or 1?
Best known answer: The largest determinant of a 21 x 21 size (0,1)-matrix is 195312500.
Sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 32, 56, 144, 320, ... OPEN [ OEIS ]
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- Does every finite connected vertex-transitive graph contain a Hamiltonian cycle except the five known counterexamples?
- Is Catalan's constant irrational?
- How many finite topologies are there, with n elements?
- How many graphs are there up to isomorphism on n nodes?
- How many transitive relations are there on a set with n elements?
- How many distinct combinatorial polytopes are there, in 3D, with n vertices?
- Is every even number >0 the sum of two primes?
- Do two knots with n, m respective minimum crossings connect-sum to a knot with n+m crossing number?
(Compare: knot checkerboard coloring and strand diagrams!)
- Can the triple connected sum of some knot (3 copies) be cobordant to the unknot? slice? ribbon?
- Is every self-inverse-concordant knot (having 2-torsion) amphichiral?
- Are the nontrivial zeroes of the Riemann zeta function all on the line Re(z) =1/2?
- Is the diameter of a polytope always found by a polynomial using its number of facets and dimension? (Polynomial Hersch)
- What are the homotopy groups of spheres? Stable homotopy groups of spheres? The ways to map a 70-dimensional sphere onto a 2-sphere?
- What is the value of the busy beaver function for n=6? That is, what is the maximal number of steps that an n-state, 2-symbol,
d+ in {LEFT, RIGHT}, 5-tuple (q, s, q+, s+, d+) Turing machine can make on an initially blank tape and then halt?
- Can a thrackle have more edges than vertices?
- Does every convex polyhedron have a net?
- How many nets does the n-dimensional hypercube have?
- Is the Mandlebrot set path-connected?
- Are multiassociahedra polytopes? (Does Loday's realization generalize?)
- Are pseudograph-multiplihedra polytopes? Poset multiplihedra?
- Does the Collatz sequence always end in 1?
- Does P = NP? Is there a polynomial time method to decide if a logical expression is a contradiction or not?
- Are there more than 5 Fermat primes? (more than 31 constructible odd-sided regular polygons?)
- Is pi + e irrational?
- Does every finite sequence of numbers appear in pi?
- Is pi normal? e?
- Is the (computable) omega constant normal? (This omega is the solution to xe^x=1.)
- What is the sixth bit of the incomputable (normal) Omega corresponding to the Busy Beaver problem? (This omega is Chaitin's constant.)
- What is the input n for the busy beaver value that would determine Goldbach?
- Is there a finite projective plane of order 12?
- How many unique (up to constant factor) non-negative solutions to
n-1 homogeneous linearly independent linear equations in n variables using 1, 0 ,-1 as coefficients are there?
- How many oriented matroids are there on a base set of size n? Up to isomorphism?
- How many incidence geometries are there for n points? n lines? Up to isomorphism?
INDEX
Determinants of Invertible (0,1)-Matrices
Hadamard's maximal determinant problem
Kobon triangles
Line arrangments (affine)
Moore graphs
Plane arrangements in 3D, affine
Poset counting
Ramsey problem
Ribbon-Slice conjecture
Singmaster's conjecture
Snaky achievement
Snake in a Box
Back to research page.
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