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Perfect Ruler


PerfectRuler

A perfect ruler also called a complete ruler, is type of ruler considered by Guy (1994) which has k distinct marks spaced such that the distances between marks can be used to measure all the distances 1, 2, 3, 4, ... up to some maximum distance n>k. Such a ruler can be constructed from a perfect difference set by subtracting one from each element. For example, the perfect difference set {1,2,5,7} gives 0, 1, 4, 6, which can be used to measure 1-0=1, 6-4=2, 4-1=3, 4-0=4, 6-1=5, 6-0=6 (so we get 6 distances with only four marks).

Perfect rulers can be used to generate graceful graphs.


See also

Golomb Ruler, Graceful Graph,, Perfect Difference Set, Ruler

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References

Guy, R. K. "Modular Difference Sets and Error Correcting Codes." §C10 in Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, 2nd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag, pp. 118-121, 1994.

Referenced on Wolfram|Alpha

Perfect Ruler

Cite this as:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Perfect Ruler." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/PerfectRuler.html

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