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10 points are drawn on a piece of paper with the following rules:

  • Each point has integer coordinates (𝑥,𝑦) that are between 1 and 10 inclusive.
  • For each point there is exactly one other point with the same x-coordinate and exactly one other point with the same y-coordinate.

The sum of the coordinates of each point (ie., x+y) is provided: 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13. Can you reconstruct the location of each point? Bonus question: can you find multiple solutions? Good luck!

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  • $\begingroup$ What exactly does "on top of each other" mean? $\endgroup$ Aug 10, 2020 at 23:19
  • $\begingroup$ It means "Two points cannot have exactly the same location." I've fixed this. $\endgroup$ Aug 10, 2020 at 23:21
  • $\begingroup$ How could they as the sums of coords are all distinct? $\endgroup$ Aug 10, 2020 at 23:21
  • $\begingroup$ Good point. I will remove that condition. $\endgroup$ Aug 10, 2020 at 23:22
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    $\begingroup$ There are exactly $470$ solutions out of $16329600$ possible, python script here and I'm working on the visual representation. $\endgroup$ Aug 11, 2020 at 3:04

4 Answers 4

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1

${}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}$

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    $\begingroup$ A work of art ;-) $\endgroup$ Aug 11, 2020 at 5:05
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    $\begingroup$ Wow that's truly beautiful and deserves the tick! $\endgroup$ Aug 11, 2020 at 6:45
  • $\begingroup$ NIce. How long did it take you to draw all of them by hand? :) $\endgroup$
    – Marius
    Aug 11, 2020 at 10:59
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    $\begingroup$ @Marius python source code here, took a couple of hours. The most indirect part was selecting the colors. Btw, can anyone suggest better colors? Maybe from XOY color space, not from RGB. $\endgroup$ Aug 11, 2020 at 14:53
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    $\begingroup$ TBH, the color doesn't add very much to the diagram, at least for this (red/green color-blind) viewer. The components are just too small. Maybe if you shaded entire strips instead of just lines? $\endgroup$ Aug 11, 2020 at 16:13
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Doesn't look anywhere near unique to me:

For example,

you can make an "L" shape from the first 6 points $(1,1),(2,2),(1,4),(2,4),(6,1),(6,2)$ and a rectangle from the remaining 4 $(7,3),(8,3),(7,5),(8,5)$ or $(4,6),(5,6),(4,8),(5,8)$ or $(3,7),(5,7),(3,8),(5,8)$ or $(3,7),(4,7),(3,9),(4,9)$

or

a "fat L" $(1,1),(3,1),(1,4),(3,3),(4,3),(4,4)$ and a rectangle $(5,5),(5,6),(7,5),(7,6)$ or $(5,5),(6,5),(5,7),(6,7)$

or

another disfigured L $(1,1),(3,1),(1,6),(2,6),(2,3),(3,3)$ and a rectangle $(5,5),(6,5),(5,7),(6,7)$ or $(6,4),(6,5),(8,4),(8,5)$ or $(8,2),(8,4),(9,2),(9,4)$ or etc.

or for a slightly different class of solution

with the $(1,1)$ piece participating in a rectangle instead of an L: $(1,1),(1,4),(9,1),(9,4)$ and $(2,2),(2,5),(4,2),(3,5),(4,8),(3,8)$

and probably more

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  • $\begingroup$ You got it. Well done! $\endgroup$ Aug 11, 2020 at 0:45
  • $\begingroup$ @DmitryKamenetsky Out of interest: do we know these are essentially all? Or do we not know and not care? Or do we know they aren't all and still don't care? Because so far I didn't do anything systematic, just throwing stuff against the wall and see what sticks... $\endgroup$ Aug 11, 2020 at 0:51
  • $\begingroup$ The solution I had was a single component (similar to tehtmi answer, but not the same). I was not aware of other solutions, but assumed that they are possible, like you have demonstrated. $\endgroup$ Aug 11, 2020 at 2:08
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I confirm @AlexeyBurdin's count of 470 solutions, which I obtained via integer linear programming as follows. Let $S=\{2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13\}$ be the set of desired sums. Let binary decision variable $p_{x,y}$ indicate whether there is a point with coordinates $(x,y)$, let binary decision variable $r_x$ indicate whether row $x$ contains any points, and let binary decision decision variable $c_y$ indicate whether column $y$ contains any points. The constraints are:

\begin{align} \sum_{x,y} p_{x,y} &= 10 \\ \sum_{y} p_{x,y} &= 2 r_x &&\text{for all $x$}\\ \sum_{x} p_{x,y} &= 2 c_y &&\text{for all $y$}\\ \sum_{\substack{x,y:\\ x + y = s}} p_{x,y} &= 1 &&\text{for all $s\in S$} \\ \end{align}

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you Rob. It is always great to get a confirmation from you. $\endgroup$ Aug 11, 2020 at 3:44
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Here is a solution with "one component":

 (1,1) 2
 (1,9) 10
 (2,9) 11
 (2,4) 6
 (4,4) 8
 (4,8) 12
 (5,8) 13
 (5,2) 7
 (3,2) 5
 (3,1) 4

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  • $\begingroup$ That one is certainly more interesting than my various "L"s'n'squares $\endgroup$ Aug 11, 2020 at 1:03
  • $\begingroup$ This was similar to the solution I had in mind, but not identical to it. $\endgroup$ Aug 11, 2020 at 2:09

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