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    Permutations

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    augustuswg
    The document discusses finding the shortest string that contains all permutations of symbols from an alphabet of size n as substrings. It is shown that for n=1,2,3 the minimum lengths are 1, 3, and 9 respectively, following the pattern of summing the first n factorial terms. An inductive argument shows that the upper bound length is the summation of the first n factorial terms. It is conjectured but not proven that this is the exact solution.

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    Permutations

    Uploaded by

    augustuswg
    58 views1 page
    The document discusses finding the shortest string that contains all permutations of symbols from an alphabet of size n as substrings. It is shown that for n=1,2,3 the minimum lengths are 1, 3, and 9 respectively, following the pattern of summing the first n factorial terms. An inductive argument shows that the upper bound length is the summation of the first n factorial terms. It is conjectured but not proven that this is the exact solution.

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    minimum permutations of a fixed series

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    The document discusses finding the shortest string that contains all permutations of symbols from an alphabet of size n as substrings. It is shown that for n=1,2,3 the minimum lengths are 1, 3, and 9 respectively, following the pattern of summing the first n factorial terms. An inductive argument shows that the upper bound length is the summation of the first n factorial terms. It is conjectured but not proven that this is the exact solution.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    58 views1 page

    Permutations

    Uploaded by

    augustuswg
    The document discusses finding the shortest string that contains all permutations of symbols from an alphabet of size n as substrings. It is shown that for n=1,2,3 the minimum lengths are 1, 3, and 9 respectively, following the pattern of summing the first n factorial terms. An inductive argument shows that the upper bound length is the summation of the first n factorial terms. It is conjectured but not proven that this is the exact solution.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 1

    PERMUTATION STRINGS Jeffrey A.

    Barnett1

    Problem: What is the length of the shortest string on an alphabet of n


    symbols that contains all n! permutations of the alphabet as (contiguous)
    substrings?

    Partial Solution: Minimum length strings for n = 1, 2, 3 are, respec-


    tively, 1, 121, and 123121321. Their lengths are 1 = 1, 3 = 1! + 2!, and
    9 = 1!+2!+3!. Given any string that contains all permutations of an alphabet
    of n − 1 symbols, a new string containing all permutations of n symbols can
    be generated by the following procedure: replace each of the (n − 1)! permu-
    tations of the form j1 . . . jn−1 with the string j1 . . . jn−1 nj1 . . . jn−1 . Overlaps
    among permutations in the old string are maintained in the replacements and
    each of the (n − 1)! replaced strings grows in length by n symbols. Therefore,
    the new string is n! = n × (n − 1)! symbols longer than the old string. The
    following depicts the construction as discussed for transforming the upper-
    bound solution from n = 3 to n = 4. Note, the output substrings, e.g.,
    1234123, contain all permutations of their first four characters.

    123 1234123
    231 2314231
    312 3124312
    213 2134213
    132 1324132
    321 3214321
    --------- ---------------------------------
    123121321 => 123412314231243121342132413214321

    A simple induction argument establishes the fact that U (n) = ni=1 i! is


    P

    an upper bound on the necessary string length. Further, n! is clearly a lower


    bound. Note, (U (n) − n!)/n! ≈ 1/n so the order of magnitude is correct. I
    conjecture, but cannot prove that U (n) is the solution to the stated problem.

    1
    [email protected]

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