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A273916 The Bingo-4 problem: minimal number of stones that must be placed on an infinite square grid to produce n groups of exactly 4 stones each. Groups consist of adjacent stones in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal line. 1
0, 4, 7, 9, 11, 12, 12, 14, 15, 16, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24 (list; graph; refs; listen; history; text; internal format)
OFFSET
0,2
COMMENTS
You are permitted to put 5 or more adjacent stones in a line, but cannot count them as a group.
Each pair of stones has at most one group that counts going through them. - David A. Corneth, Aug 01 2016
a(n) >= n and a(n+m) <= a(n) + a(m), e.g., a(16) <= a(10) + a(6) = 28. Placing stones in a 4 X k rectangular array shows that a(3k) <= 4(k+2). Fekete's subadditive lemma shows that 1 <= lim_{n->oo} a(n)/n <= 4/3 exists. - Chai Wah Wu, Jul 31 2016
Limit_{n->oo} a(n)/n = 1. See arXiv link. - Chai Wah Wu, Aug 25 2016
LINKS
Chai Wah Wu, Minimal number of points on a grid forming patterns of blocks, arXiv:1608.07247 [math.CO], 2016.
EXAMPLE
From M. F. Hasler, Jul 30 2016: (Start)
One can get n=3 groups using a(3) = 9 stones (O) as follows:
O O O O The 3 groups are:
. O O . (1) the first line,
. O . . (2) the second column,
O O . . (3) the antidiagonal.
See the link for more examples. (End)
CROSSREFS
See also the 4-trees-in-a-row orchard problem, A006065.
Sequence in context: A272015 A310941 A310942 * A053169 A007656 A159619
KEYWORD
nonn,more,nice
AUTHOR
EXTENSIONS
Edited by N. J. A. Sloane, Jul 29 2016
STATUS
approved

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Last modified March 18 22:56 EDT 2024. Contains 370952 sequences. (Running on oeis4.)