[seqfan] No progress on the classic "Football pools" problem in 52 years

[Neil Sloane]

I grew up in a country where many people played the football pools every
week (trying to guess the winners of next week's games: you know Manchester
United is going to beat Arsenal, but there are 13 games to predict).

The classical problem translates into finding the smallest covering code in
{0,1,2}^n with covering radius 1.  The sequence (A004044) begins
1,3,5,9,27, but even after 52 years, a(6) is still not known.  Tonight I
came across a lot of references, which I have added to A004044.  a(6) is
known to be 71, 72, or 73.
If you can solve it, you might not make any money, but you will probably
get your name in the science section of the newspaper.

Good publicity for the OEIS too!


Best regards
Neil

Neil J. A. Sloane, President, OEIS Foundation.
11 South Adelaide Avenue, Highland Park, NJ 08904, USA.
Also Visiting Scientist, Math. Dept., Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ.
Phone: 732 828 6098; home page: http://NeilSloane.com
Email: njasloane at gmail.com