abstract


Can Kirkman's schoolgirls walk abreast by forming arithmetic progressions ?

Lorenz Halbeisen


A Kirkman triple system of order v, whose point set is consecutively numbered, is called smooth, if for each parallel class there is a number d, such that each triple of the parallel class forms an arithmetic progression modulo v with common difference d. It will be shown that smooth Kirkman triple systems of order v exist, if and only if v is a power of 3.

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