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Doron Zeilberger

Publications and source records attributed to Doron Zeilberger.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

The Distribution of Double Deficiencies in Pattern-Avoiding Permutations

We study the distribution of the number of double deficiencies (DD) in permutations of length n avoiding one or two patterns of length 3. Using structural decompositions of these avoidance classes--together with a lattice-path decomposition in the 321-avoiding case--we derive functional equations and convolution-type recurrences that efficiently compute the corresponding double-deficiency generating functions in all but one single-pattern case. In the 321-avoiding permutations, the resulting generating function is algebraic; we derive exact formulas for the mean and variance and prove that the distribution is close in total variation to Bin(n-2,1/4), with an explicit convergence rate. We also identify a DD-preserving symmetry that yields DD-Wilf equivalences, reducing the number of two-pattern cases that need to be considered separately. For the resulting two-pattern classes, we obtain explicit recurrences, including C-finite relations.

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

Estimating Many Constants With a Coin

We extend, and fully implement, in Maple, Jim Propp's charming way of estimating Pi via tossing a fair coin, and compute many other constants, even going beyond the far more general set-up of Bruss and Paindaveine.

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

In How Many Ways can a Rectangle be Rectangled?

There are $2^{n-1}$ ways to tile a $1 \times n$ rectangle with rectangular tiles (of any length, of course they all must have width $1$), but in how many ways can you tile a $100 \times 100$ checkerboard with such tiles? Neither humankind, nor computer-kind, will (most probably) ever know the exact number. But it is possible to compute these numbers for $m \times n$ rectangular grids, if $m$ is not too big, while $n$ can be as big as one wishes. This was initially done in 1988 by David Klarner and Spyros Magliveras, and beautifully extended, around 2006, by, at-the-time, first-year LSU undergraduate Joshua Smith, in collaboration with his faculty mentor, Helena Verrill. Here we extend this to weighted-counting, also keeping track of the number of tiles (that ranges from $1$ to $mn$), and the number of participating grid-edges (that range from $2m+2n$ to $2mn+m+n$). This quickly leads to statistical analyses (mean, variance, and higher moments) of these quantities. While we admire the clever approaches of Klarner-Magliveras and Smith-Verrill, we use two alternative approaches to the original problem, that are more amenable for deriving these generalizations. At the same time, we illustrate the power and beauty of experimental-yet-rigorous enumerative combinatorics.

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

Cutting 4 by $n$ grids into two congruent pieces

In the March 2025 issue of Pour la Science, Jean-Paul Delahaye described a wonderful solution to the following problem: How many ways can you divide a 3 by 2n rectangle into two connected, congruent pieces? We show that this problem can be solved by the transfer matrix method, and demonstrate this by computing the generating function for the number of ways to divide a 4 by n rectangle into two connected, congruent parts.

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arXiv2026

Counting (and Randomly Generating) Hamiltonian Cycles in Rectangular Grids

We first fully implement, in Maple, the ingenious method of Robert Stoyan and Volker Strehl from 1995 to automatically derive generating functions for the number of Hamiltonian cycles in an m by n grid graph ,for a fixed width m, but general length n, and actually compute these generating functions for all m up to ten. We also show how to generate a uniformly-at-random such Hamiltonian cycle, and also derive more informative generating functions for other parameters besides the length of the grid graph.

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

Automated Counting of Spanning Trees for Several Infinite Families of Graphs

Using the theoretical basis developed by Yao and Zeilberger, we consider certain graph families whose structure results in a rational generating function for sequences related to spanning tree enumeration. Said families are Powers of Cycles and Powers of Path; later, we briefly discuss Torus graphs and Grid graphs. In each case we know, a priori, that the set of spanning trees of the family of graphs can be described in terms of a finite-state-machine, and hence there is a finite transfer-matrix that guarantees the generating function is rational. Finding this ``grammar'', and hence the transfer-matrix is very tedious, so a much more efficient approach is to use experimental mathematics. Since computing numerical determinants is so fast, one can use the matrix tree theorem to generate sufficiently many terms, then fit the data to a rational function. The whole procedure can be done rigorously a posteriori.

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

Statistical Analysis of Hairpins and BasePairs in RNA Secondary Structures

We derive precise asymptotic expressions for the expectations, variances, covariance, and quite a few further mixed moments for the number of hairpins and the number of basepairs in RNA secondary structures, and give convincing evidence that the central-scaled distribution of the pair of random variables (hairpins, basepairs) tends in distribution to the bi-variate normal distribution with correlation $\sqrt{5 \sqrt{5} -11}/2= 0.2123322205\dots$

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arXiv2025

How many coin tosses would you need until you get $n$ Heads or $m$ Tails?

We harness both human ingenuity and the power of symbolic computation to study the number of coin tosses until reaching $n$ Heads or $m$ Tails. We also talk about the closely related problem of reaching $n$ Heads and $m$ Tails. This paper is accompanied by a Maple package that enables fast computation of expectations, variances, and higher moments of these quantities.

math.PR↗
arXiv2025

Every Fifth Real Number is Evil

Fifteen years ago, then-Carleton-undergrad Isaac Hodes, proved that the Golden Ratio is evil. In this modest contribution to human knowledge, we show that in fact, every fifth real number is evil, and we present lots of other interesting numbers that are evil. We also show (in addition to many other fascinating facts), that the expected evil-location of a random evil number is 148.185185185185185... . It follows that the Golden Ratio is a fairly average evil real number, since, as first computed by Hodes, the evil location of the Golden Ratio is 146.

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arXiv2025

The Challenge of Computing Geode Numbers

In a fascinating recent American Mathematical Monthly article, Norman Wildberger and Dean Rubine introduced a new kind of combinatorial numbers, that they aptly named the ``Geode numbers''. While their definition is simple, these numbers are surprisingly hard to compute, in general. While the two-dimensional case has a nice closed-form expression, that make them easy to compute, already the three-dimensional case poses major computational challenges that we do meet, combining experimental mathematics and the holonomic ansatz. Alas, things get really complicated in four and higher dimensions, and we are unable to efficiently compute, for example, the $1000$-th term of the four-dimensional diagonal Geode sequence. A donation of $100$ US dollars to the OEIS, in honor of the first person to compute this number, is offered.

math.CO↗
arXiv2025

Proofs Of Three Geode Conjectures

In the May 2025 issue of the Amer. Math. Monthly, Norman J. Wildberger and Dean Rubine intoduced a new kind of multi-indexed numbers, that they call `Geode numbers', obtained from the Hyper-Catalan numbers. They posed three intriguing conjectures about them, that are proved in this note.

math.CO↗
arXiv2025

Experimenting with the Garsia-Milne Involution Principle

In 1981, Adriano Garsia and Steve Milne found the first bijective proof of the celebrated Rogers-Ramanujan identities. To achieve this feat, they invented a versatile tool that they called the Involution Principle. In this note we revisit this useful principle from a very general perspective, independent of its application to specific combinatorial identities, and will explore its complexity.

math.CO↗
arXiv2025

Hitting k primes by dice rolls

Let $S=(d_1,d_2,d_3, \ldots )$ be an infinite sequence of rolls of independent fair dice. For an integer $k \geq 1$, let $L_k=L_k(S)$ be the smallest $i$ so that there are $k$ integers $j \leq i$ for which $\sum_{t=1}^j d_t$ is a prime. Therefore, $L_k$ is the random variable whose value is the number of dice rolls required until the accumulated sum equals a prime $k$ times. It is known that the expected value of $L_1$ is close to $2.43$. Here we show that for large $k$, the expected value of $L_k$ is $(1+o(1)) k\log_e k$, where the $o(1)$-term tends to zero as $k$ tends to infinity. We also include some computational results about the distribution of $L_k$ for $k \leq 100$.

math.PR↗
arXiv2025

The (Symbolic and Numeric) Computational Challenges of Counting 0-1 Balanced Matrices

A chessboard has the property that every row and every column has as many white squares as black squares. In this mostly methodological note, we address the problem of counting such rectangular arrays with a fixed (numeric) number of rows, but an arbitrary (symbolic) number of columns. We first address the ``vanilla" problem where there are no restrictions, and then go on to discuss the still-more-challenging problem of counting such binary arrays that are not permitted to contain a specified (finite) set of horizontal patterns, and a specified set of vertical patterns. While we can rigorously prove that each such sequence satisfies some linear recurrence equation with polynomial coefficients, actually finding these recurrences poses major {\it symbolic}-computational challenges, that we can only meet in some small cases. In fact, just generating as many as possible terms of these sequences is a big {\it numeric}-computational challenge. This was tackled by computer whiz Ron H. Hardin, who contributed several such sequences, and computed quite a few terms of each. We extend Hardin's sequences quite considerably. We also talk about the much easier problem of counting such restricted arrays without balance conditions.

math.CO↗
arXiv2025

Efficient Weighted Counting of Multiset Derangements

We use the Almkvist-Zeilberger algorithm, combined with a weighted version of the Even-Gillis Laguerre integral due to Foata and Zeilberger, in order to efficiently compute weight enumerators of multiset derangements according to the number of cycles. The present paper is inspired by important previous work by Mourad Ismail and his collaborators, done in the late 1970s, but still useful after all these years.

math.CO↗
arXiv2024

A Short Proof that the number of $(a,b)$-parking functions of length n $a(a+bn)^{n-1}$

We give a very short proof of the fact that the number of $(a,b)$-parking functions of length $n$ equals $a(a+bn)^{n-1}$. This was first proved in 2003 by Kung and Yan, via a very long and torturous route, as a corollary of a more general result. This new version contains a reference to previous work kindly communicated by Richard Stanley

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