this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
78 points (96.4% liked)

science

14722 readers
761 users here now

just science related topics. please contribute

note: clickbait sources/headlines aren't liked generally. I've posted crap sources and later deleted or edit to improve after complaints. whoops, sry

Rule 1) Be kind.

lemmy.world rules: https://mastodon.world/about

I don't screen everything, lrn2scroll

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
m3t00@lemmy.world
Joleee@lemmy.world
laverabe@lemmy.world
DeadPand@midwest.social
78
Mathematicians Crack a Century-Old Problem That's Perfect For Your Next Party (www.sciencealert.com)
submitted 1 year ago by nodimetotie@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world
24 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] nodimetotie@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Probably these two paragraphs sum up the background for the problem nicely

A common analogy for Ramsey theory requires us to consider how many people to invite to a party so that at least three people will either already be acquainted with each other or at least three people will be total strangers to each other.

Here, the Ramsey number, r, is the minimum number of people needed at the party so that either s people know each other or t people don't know each other. This can be written as r(s,t), and we know the answer to r(3,3) = 6.

I was more interested in finding out about Ramsey theorem, though, rather than this new result.