scholarly journals On the Linearity of Higher-Dimensional Blocking Sets

10.37236/446 ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Van De Voorde

A small minimal $k$-blocking set $B$ in $\mathrm{PG}(n,q)$, $q=p^t$, $p$ prime, is a set of less than $3(q^k+1)/2$ points in $\mathrm{PG}(n,q)$, such that every $(n-k)$-dimensional space contains at least one point of $B$ and such that no proper subset of $B$ satisfies this property. The linearity conjecture states that all small minimal $k$-blocking sets in $\mathrm{PG}(n,q)$ are linear over a subfield $\mathbb{F}_{p^e}$ of $\mathbb{F}_q$. Apart from a few cases, this conjecture is still open. In this paper, we show that to prove the linearity conjecture for $k$-blocking sets in $\mathrm{PG}(n,p^t)$, with exponent $e$ and $p^e\geq 7$, it is sufficient to prove it for one value of $n$ that is at least $2k$. Furthermore, we show that the linearity of small minimal blocking sets in $\mathrm{PG}(2,q)$ implies the linearity of small minimal $k$-blocking sets in $\mathrm{PG}(n,p^t)$, with exponent $e$, with $p^e\geq t/e+11$.

10.37236/5717 ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan De Beule ◽  
Tamás Héger ◽  
Tamás Szőnyi ◽  
Geertrui Van de Voorde

In this paper, by using properties of Baer subplanes, we describe the construction of a minimal blocking set in the Hall plane of order $q^2$ of size $q^2+2q+2$ admitting $1-$, $2-$, $3-$, $4-$, $(q+1)-$ and $(q+2)-$secants. As a corollary, we obtain the existence of a minimal blocking set of a non-Desarguesian affine plane of order $q^2$ of size at most $4q^2/3+5q/3$, which is considerably smaller than $2q^2-1$, the Jamison bound for the size of a minimal blocking set in an affine Desarguesian plane of order $q^2$.We also consider particular André planes of order $q$, where $q$ is a power of the prime $p$, and give a construction of a small minimal blocking set which admits a secant line not meeting the blocking set in $1$ mod $p$ points. Furthermore, we elaborate on the connection of this problem with the study of value sets of certain polynomials and with the construction of small double blocking sets in Desarguesian projective planes; in both topics we provide some new results.


2005 ◽  
Vol DMTCS Proceedings vol. AE,... (Proceedings) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslava Cimráková ◽  
Veerle Fack

International audience The generalized quadrangle $Q(4,q)$ arising from the parabolic quadric in $PG(4,q)$ always has an ovoid. It is not known whether a minimal blocking set of size smaller than $q^2 + q$ (which is not an ovoid) exists in $Q(4,q)$, $q$ odd. We present results on smallest blocking sets in $Q(4,q)$, $q$ odd, obtained by a computer search. For $q = 5,7,9,11$ we found minimal blocking sets of size $q^2 + q - 2$ and we discuss their structure. By an exhaustive search we excluded the existence of a minimal blocking set of size $q^2 + 3$ in $Q(4,7)$.


1992 ◽  
Vol 02 (04) ◽  
pp. 437-442
Author(s):  
RUTH SILVERMAN ◽  
ALAN H. STEIN

A family of sets is said to have property B(s) if there is a set, referred to as a blocking set, whose intersection with each member of the family is a proper subset of that blocking set and contains fewer than s elements. A finite projective plane is a construction satisfying the two conditions that any two lines meet in a unique point and any two points are on a unique line. In this paper, the authors develop an algorithm of complexity O(n3) for constructing a blocking set for a projective plane of order n.


10.37236/7810 ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anurag Bishnoi ◽  
Sam Mattheus ◽  
Jeroen Schillewaert

We prove that a minimal $t$-fold blocking set in a finite projective plane of order $n$ has cardinality at most \[\frac{1}{2} n\sqrt{4tn - (3t + 1)(t - 1)} + \frac{1}{2} (t - 1)n + t.\] This is the first general upper bound on the size of minimal $t$-fold blocking sets in finite projective planes and it generalizes the classical result of Bruen and Thas on minimal blocking sets. From the proof it directly follows that if equality occurs in this bound then every line intersects the blocking set $S$ in either $t$ points or $\frac{1}{2}(\sqrt{4tn  - (3t + 1)(t - 1)}  + t - 1) + 1$ points. We use this to show that for $n$ a prime power, equality can occur in our bound in exactly one of the following three cases: (a) $t = 1$, $n$ is a square and $S$ is a unital; (b) $t = n - \sqrt{n}$, $n$ is a square and $S$ is the complement of a Baer subplane; (c) $t = n$ and $S$ is equal to the set of all points except one. For a square prime power $q$ and $t \leq \sqrt{q} + 1$, we give a construction of a minimal $t$-fold blocking set $S$ in $\mathrm{PG}(2,q)$ with $|S| = q\sqrt{q} + 1 + (t - 1)(q - \sqrt{q} + 1)$. Furthermore, we obtain an upper bound on the size of minimal blocking sets in symmetric $2$-designs and use it to give new proofs of other known results regarding tangency sets in higher dimensional finite projective spaces. We also discuss further generalizations of our bound. In our proofs we use an incidence bound on combinatorial designs which follows from applying the expander mixing lemma to the incidence graph of these designs.


Author(s):  
Nicholas Mee

Celestial Tapestry places mathematics within a vibrant cultural and historical context, highlighting links to the visual arts and design, and broader areas of artistic creativity. Threads are woven together telling of surprising influences that have passed between the arts and mathematics. The story involves many intriguing characters: Gaston Julia, who laid the foundations for fractals and computer art while recovering in hospital after suffering serious injury in the First World War; Charles Howard, Hinton who was imprisoned for bigamy but whose books had a huge influence on twentieth-century art; Michael Scott, the Scottish necromancer who was the dedicatee of Fibonacci’s Book of Calculation, the most important medieval book of mathematics; Richard of Wallingford, the pioneer clockmaker who suffered from leprosy and who never recovered from a lightning strike on his bedchamber; Alicia Stott Boole, the Victorian housewife who amazed mathematicians with her intuition for higher-dimensional space. The book includes more than 200 colour illustrations, puzzles to engage the reader, and many remarkable tales: the secret message in Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors; the link between Viking runes, a Milanese banking dynasty, and modern sculpture; the connection between astrology, religion, and the Apocalypse; binary numbers and the I Ching. It also explains topics on the school mathematics curriculum: algorithms; arithmetic progressions; combinations and permutations; number sequences; the axiomatic method; geometrical proof; tessellations and polyhedra, as well as many essential topics for arts and humanities students: single-point perspective; fractals; computer art; the golden section; the higher-dimensional inspiration behind modern art.


2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (a1) ◽  
pp. C1-C1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted Janssen ◽  
Aloysio Janner

2014 is the International Year of Crystallography. During at least fifty years after the discovery of diffraction of X-rays by crystals, it was believed that crystals have lattice periodicity, and crystals were defined by this property. Now it has become clear that there is a large class of compounds with interesting properties that should be called crystals as well, but are not lattice periodic. A method has been developed to describe and analyze these aperiodic crystals, using a higher-dimensional space. In this lecture the discovery of aperiodic crystals and the development of the formalism of the so-called superspace will be described. There are several classes of such materials. After the incommensurate modulated phases, incommensurate magnetic crystals, incommensurate composites and quasicrystals were discovered. They could all be studied using the same technique. Their main properties of these classes and the ways to characterize them will be discussed. The new family of aperiodic crystals has led also to new physical properties, to new techniques in crystallography and to interesting mathematical questions. Much has been done in the last fifty years by hundreds of crystallographers, crystal growers, physicists, chemists, mineralogists and mathematicians. Many new insights have been obtained. But there are still many questions, also of fundamental nature, to be answered. We end with a discussion of these open questions.


2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 99-111
Author(s):  
L.Yasin Nada Yassen Kasm Yahya ◽  
Abdul Khalik

Author(s):  
Austin M. Freeman

Angels probably have bodies. There is no good evidence (biblical, philosophical, or historical) to argue against their bodiliness; there is an abundance of evidence (biblical, philosophical, historical) that makes the case for angelic bodies. After surveying biblical texts alleged to demonstrate angelic incorporeality, the discussion moves to examine patristic, medieval, and some modern figures on the subject. In short, before the High Medieval period belief in angelic bodies was the norm, and afterwards it is the exception. A brief foray into modern physics and higher spatial dimensions (termed “hyperspace”), coupled with an analogical use of Edwin Abbott’s Flatland, serves to explain the way in which appealing to higher-dimensional angelic bodies matches the record of angelic activity in the Bible remarkably well. This position also cuts through a historical equivocation on the question of angelic embodiment. Angels do have bodies, but they are bodies very unlike our own. They do not have bodies in any three-dimensional space we can observe, but are nevertheless embodied beings.


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