"Road Coloring Problem" solved. I'm a bit disappointed in our members.

[Chip]

I'm not pretending to have a clue as to how or why this mathematical puzzle/theorm/riddle was thought of or solved, but I can say I'm quite disappointed none of our Mathematicians or Engineers were the one to figure it out.

"Say you've lost an e-mail and you want to get it back — it would be guaranteed," he said. "Let's say you are lost in a town you have never been in before and you have to get to a friend's house and there are no street signs — the directions will work no matter what."

I believe there are SAR implications, which is why I post it.

 

[bikehikeskifish]

So, if I leave my backpack in the col on a loop hike in winter in the 'daks without my snowshoes, this proves I can find it again?

Tim

 

[MichaelJ]

He actually published this last September, I believe it's in the news now because it's been peer-verified and now up for journal publication.

It's an interesting problem, better explained than I could on Wikipedia if you just scroll down to the "Example and Intuition" section.

The whole "directions to their house" thing of course only works if the roads are "colored", ie, there has to be some kind of existing pattern to which you can map. In the example given, it's the coloring of the vectors in the directed graph.

Cool stuff.

 

[David Metsky]

Cool stuff.

Very cool. Completely unrelated to this website, but cool.

Closed.

-dave-