A coding theoretic solution to the 36 officer problem (Q1321562)

From MaRDI portal
scientific article
Language Label Description Also known as
English
A coding theoretic solution to the 36 officer problem
scientific article

    Statements

    A coding theoretic solution to the 36 officer problem (English)
    0 references
    5 September 1994
    0 references
    The author disproved the famous Euler conjecture in the case when the size of the latin square is \(6 \times 6\). We remark: (1) The title of the paper is misleading since the 36 officer problem is unsolvable as it is correctly proved in this paper. (2) The author is correct, when he stated that Tarry in 1901 proved that the Euler conjecture is false when the size of the latin square is \(6 \times 6\). He mentions that Tarry's result has been proved again by Stinson in 1984 (see \textit{D. R. Stinson} [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 36, 373-376 (1984; Zbl 0538.05012)]). Unfortunately the author seems to be unaware of [\textit{J. Dénes} and \textit{A. D. Keedwell} (Eds.), Latin squares. New developments in the theory and Applications. Ann. of Discrete Math. 46 (1991; Zbl 0715.00010)]. On page 3 of this volume one can find a list of seven papers with the same result. The reviewer does not see any justification why the present author mentioned two of them and neglected the other five.
    0 references
    Euler conjecture
    0 references
    36 officer problem
    0 references

    Identifiers