News > Hypergraphs Reveal Solution to 50-Year-Old Problem

Hypergraphs Reveal Solution to 50-Year-Old Problem

In 1850, Thomas Penyngton Kirkman, a mathematician when he wasn’t fulfilling his main responsibility as a vicar in the Church of England, described his “schoolgirl problem”:

“Fifteen young ladies in a school walk out three abreast for seven days in succession: it is required to arrange them daily, so that no two shall walk twice abreast.”