Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · cs/0009023

The Rectilinear Crossing Number of K_10 is 62

Alex Brodsky·Stephane Durocher·Ellen Gethner
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

A drawing of a graph G in the plane is said to be a rectilinear drawing of G if the edges are required to be line segments (as opposed to Jordan curves). We assume no three vertices are collinear. The rectilinear crossing number of G is the fewest number of edge crossings attainable over all rectilinear drawings of G. Thanks to Richard Guy, exact values of the rectilinear crossing number of K_n, the complete graph on n vertices, for n = 3,...,9, are known (Guy 1972, White and Beinke 1978, Finch 2000, Sloanes A014540). Since 1971, thanks to the work of David Singer (1971, Gardiner 1986), the rectilinear crossing number of K_10 has been known to be either 61 or 62, a deceptively innocent and tantalizing statement. The difficulty of determining the correct value is evidenced by the fact that Singer's result has withstood the test of time. In this paper we use a purely combinatorial argument to show that the rectilinear crossing number of K_10 is 62. Moreover, using this result, we improve an asymptotic lower bound for a related problem. Finally, we close with some new and old open questions that were provoked, in part, by the results of this paper, and by the tangled history of the problem itself.

Explore related subjects

cs.DMmath.CO

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Alex Brodsky, Stephane Durocher, Ellen Gethner. 2000-09-22. The Rectilinear Crossing Number of K_10 is 62. https://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0009023

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

An FPTAS for Two-Machine Open-Shop Scheduling with a Single Unavailability Interval

We consider the two-machine open-shop scheduling problem in which one machine is unavailable during a fixed interval. We study the resumable setting: an operation interrupted by the unavailability interval may resume, without penalty, when the machine becomes available. The objective is to minimize the makespan. Although the problem is NP-hard and several approximation algorithms are known, whether it admits a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme (FPTAS) has remained open for two decades. We resolve this question affirmatively by giving the first FPTAS, thereby strengthening the previously known polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS). As an intermediate result, we develop a new pseudo-polynomial dynamic program with seven state dimensions, improving on the ten-dimensional formulation in the literature.

cs.DM↗
arXiv2026

Generalized Graph Search Trees

Graph search algorithms and their corresponding graph search trees are commonly used in algorithmic graph theory. In recent years, the recognition problem of these graph search trees has received significant attention. So far, the research has focused on two types of search trees: first-in trees that behave like BFS-trees and last-in trees that behave like DFS-trees. The search tree paradigms differ from each other by the parent a vertex is connected to. In first-in trees, it is the first visited neighbor, while in last-in trees it is the last neighbor visited before that vertex. Here, we will generalize these concepts of graph search trees by allowing every preceding neighbor of a vertex to be the parent. We study the complexity of the recognition problem of these generalized graph search trees. We present NP-completeness proofs for most searches. We also show that the problem is trivial for Generic Search and polynomial-time solvable for several searches on bipartite graphs and chordal graphs. We also study the question how fixing the start vertex influences the complexity of the problem.

cs.DM↗
arXiv2026

The exact asymptotic constant in the metric dimension of Jaccard space

Let $X$ be a finite set with $|X|=n$ and let $\mathrm{Jac}(a,b)=|a\,\triangle\, b|/|a\cup b|$ be the Jaccard distance on the power set $2^X$. Lladser and Paradise recently proved that the metric dimension of $(2^X,\mathrm{Jac})$ is $\Theta(n/\ln n)$, with the constant left open; their bounds are $(\ln 2)\,n/\ln n\lesssim \beta(2^X,\mathrm{Jac})\lesssim 2\ln(2e)\,n/\ln n$. We determine the constant: \[ \beta(2^X,\mathrm{Jac})=\frac{2n}{\log_2 n}\,(1+o(1))=(2\ln 2)\,\frac{n}{\ln n}\,(1+o(1)). \] The proof identifies the problem, on each ``slice'' of subsets of fixed cardinality, with the Erd\H{o}s--R\'enyi coin-weighing problem for a spring scale (the problem of \emph{detecting matrices}). The lower bound is the Erd\H{o}s--R\'enyi entropy argument applied to the middle slice; the upper bound follows from the explicit detecting families of Lindstr\"om and of Cantor and Mills, augmented by a single extra landmark that reveals cardinality.

cs.DM↗