Home

> urticator.net
  Search

  About This Site
> Domains
  Glue
  Stories

  Computers
  Driving
  Games
  Humor
  Law
  Math
> Numbers
  Science

  Powers and Fractions
  Notes About Squares
  Decimal Expansions (Section)
> Number Maze
  Primes
  Divisibility
  Intrinsic Nature of Primes
  Other Topics
  Other Topics (2)

  The Next Block
> Minimal Blocks
  Odds and Ends

Minimal Blocks

prev

Suppose we define an ordering on the points of the plane by saying that (x1,y1) ≤ (x2,y2) if and only if x1 ≤ x2 and y1 ≤ y2. The ordering is only partial, i.e., doesn't apply to all pairs of points, but then when it does apply we can probably all agree with the result.

Under that ordering, a set of points won't necessarily have a minimum, but it will have a minimal set, a set of points such that every other point is larger than at least one of them. Here's the minimal set for the points that are centers of 3×3 blocks.

Actually, that's only half the minimal set … you can get the other half by reflecting about the line y = x. Next, here are the coordinates, reflected to fit the convention that x < y.

(105,6201)
2315655
4955301
5953129
12751309

Which of these is the “real” first block is a matter of taste. However … if we measure using the function min(x,y), the first block is the first one I found, but under any other reasonable measure—max(x,y), x+y, sqrt(x2+y2)—the first block is (1275,1309).

Finally, here are three nice non-minimal blocks that I happened to notice.

(1001,3795)
20011885
 
17297125

next

 

  See Also

  Next Block, The
  Odds and Ends

@ July (2004)