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Unanswered Questions

1,936 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
55 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 ...
38 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,...
33 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. ...
31 votes
0 answers
936 views

Is this representation of Go (game) irreducible?

This post is freely inspired by the basic rules of Go (game), usually played on a $19 \times 19$ grid graph. Consider the $\mathbb{Z}^2$ grid. We can assign to each vertex a state "black" ($b$), "...
29 votes
0 answers
1k views

Non-linear expanders?

Recall that a family of graphs (indexed by an infinite set, such as the primes, say) is called an expander family if there is a $\delta>0$ such that, on every graph in the family, the discrete ...
28 votes
0 answers
1k views

Computational complexity of topological K-theory

I am a novice with K-theory trying to understand what is and what is not possible. Given a finite simplicial complex $X$, there of course elementary ways to quickly compute the cohomology of $X$ with ...
26 votes
0 answers
677 views

Planar minor graphs

The theorem of Robertson-Seymour about graph minors says that there exists no infinite family of graphs such that none of them is a minor of another one. Apparently, it came as a generalization of ...
24 votes
0 answers
781 views

How much of the plane is 4-colorable?

In 1981, Falconer proved that the measurable chromatic number of the plane is at least 5. That is, there are no measurable sets $A_1,A_2,A_3,A_4\subseteq\mathbb{R}^2$, each avoiding unit distances, ...
24 votes
0 answers
503 views

Is the Poset of Graphs Automorphism-free?

For $n\geq 5$, let $\mathcal {P}_n$ be the set of all isomorphism classes of graphs with n vertices. Give this set the poset structure given by $G \le H$ if and only if $G$ is a subgraph of $H$. Is ...
22 votes
0 answers
564 views

Zero curves of Tutte Polynomials?

There is an extensive theory of the real and complex roots of the chromatic polynomial of a graph, a substantial fraction of this being due to the connections between the chromatic polynomial and a ...
21 votes
0 answers
463 views

Straight-line drawing of regular polyhedra

Find the minimum number of straight lines needed to cover a crossing-free straight-line drawing of the icosahedron $(13\dots 15)$ and of the dodecahedron $(9\dots 10)$ (in the plane). For example, ...
20 votes
0 answers
683 views

Simpler proofs of certain Ramsey numbers

The reason for the gorgeous simplicity of the classic proofs of $R(3,3)$, $R(4,4)$, $R(3,4)$ and $R(3,5)$ is that essentially all you need is the trivial bound and a picture. But for bigger Ramsey ...
19 votes
0 answers
523 views

Checking Mertens and the like in less than linear time or less than $\sqrt{x}$ space

Say you want to check that $|\sum_{n\leq x} \mu(n)|\leq \sqrt{x}$ for all $x\leq X$. (I am actually interested in checking that $\sum_{n\leq x} \mu(n)/n|\leq c/\sqrt{x}$, where $c$ is a constant, and ...
19 votes
0 answers
795 views

Reference request: Parallel processor theorem of William Thurston

Sometime in the 1980's or 1990's, Bill Thurston proved a theorem regarding the existence of a universal parallel processing machine, using a certain class for such machines having finite deterministic ...
18 votes
0 answers
440 views

Is the Frog game solvable in the root of a full binary tree?

This is a cross-post from math.stackexchange.com$^{[1]}$, since the bounty there didn't lead to any new insights. For reference, The Frog game is the generalization of the Frog Jumping (see it on ...

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