The Chronicle of Higher Education

Casting Out Nines: Math Monday: Columnar transposition ciphers and permutations, oh my

I hope you enjoyed Ed’s guest posts on NP-complete problems on TV the last couple of Mondays. It’s always great to hear from others on math that they are thinking about. This week it’s me again, and ...
The Chronicle of Higher Education

Cycles, and the cycle decomposition of a permutation

Last week’s installment on columnar transposition ciphers described a formula for the underlying permutation for a CTC. If we assume that the number of columns being used divides the length of the ...
Law

Morrison on Metrics: The mathematics of permutations

The more ideas and possible mixes and matches a law department manager has available to choose from, the more permutations there are. Obvious, yes, but what are the mathematics? Let's consider an ...
UMass Lowell

Mathematics Colloquium: Descents of Permutations with Only Even or Only Odd Cycles with Sergi Elizalde 12/3

Abstract: It is known that, when n is even, the number of permutations of {1,2,...,n} all of whose cycles have odd length equals the number of those all of whose cycles have even length. Adin, Hegedüs ...
RealClearScience

Anonymous Math Whiz Advances Permutation Problem

On September 16, 2011, an anime fan posted a math question to the online bulletin board 4chan about the cult classic television series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Season one of the show, which ...