A SAT-based Resolution of Lam's Problem

DOI10.1609/AAAI.V35I5.16483MaRDI QIDQ6355609zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Curtis Bright, Kevin K. H. Cheung, Brett Stevens, Ilias S. Kotsireas, Vijay Ganesh

Publication date 8 December 2020

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1609/AAAI.V35I5.16483

Abstract: In 1989, computer searches by Lam, Thiel, and Swiercz experimentally resolved Lam's problem from projective geometry$unicodex2014$the long-standing problem of determining if a projective plane of order ten exists. Both the original search and an independent verification in 2011 discovered no such projective plane. However, these searches were each performed using highly specialized custom-written code and did not produce nonexistence certificates. In this paper, we resolve Lam's problem by translating the problem into Boolean logic and use satisfiability (SAT) solvers to produce nonexistence certificates that can be verified by a third party. Our work uncovered consistency issues in both previous searches$unicodex2014$highlighting the difficulty of relying on special-purpose search code for nonexistence results.

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