Permutation Wordle

Start Date: November 5, 2026
End Date: November 5, 2026
Event Start Time: 5:00 PM
Event End Time: 6:00 PM
Seminar Type: Current Seminars
Seminar location:
https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/expmath/

Zoom (see webpage for login information)
Seminar Series: Experimental Math Seminar
Presenter(s): Lawren Smithline, Center for Communication Research, Princeton, NJ
Abstract:
We introduce a guessing game "Permutation Wordle", in which a guesser attempts to recover a setter's hidden permutation of the set {1 ... ,n}. In each round, the guesser submits a word over the alphabet {1 ...,n}, and as in the game Wordle, learns which entries are correct. We describe a natural strategy and prove that it is optimal in a strong sense: for every r, it solves at least as many secrets within r rounds as any possible strategy. The number of permutations it solves in exactly k+1 rounds is the Eulerian number A(n,k).

Joint work with Sandy Kutin and Vince Vatter.

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