The nonexistence of ovals in a projective plane of order 10 (Q5902846): Difference between revisions

It is well known that if a projective plane of order 10 with an oval \((=hyperoval)\) exists, then a partial geometry pg(6,9,4) exists. Such a partial geometry can be described by taking pairs from \(N:=\{1,2,...,12\}\) as lines and a suitable set of 99 partitions of N into six pairs as points, where a point is on a line if the pair occurs in the partition. By an exhaustive backtrack search, which took 183 days of computing on a VAX 11/780, it was shown that such a set of partitions does not exist. This note gives a brief indication of the methods (two different programs were used). A copy of the program is available from the authors on request. The non-existence of the partial geometry implies that a projective plane of order 10, if one exists, does not have an oval. It is also well known that this implies that a plane of order 10 does not have an extension to a 3-design. (The results announced in Zbl 0511.05020, instead of a review of the paper in question, are therefore superfluous).