Template:Did you know nominations/Mutilated chessboard problem

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 19:47, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Mutilated chessboard problem

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... that there is no way to cover a chessboard by dominoes, each covering two squares, leaving only two opposite corners uncovered? Source: Gardner, Martin (March 1957), "Some old and new versions of ticktacktoe, plus the answers to last month's puzzles", Mathematical Games, Scientific American, 196 (3): 160–168, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24941903, reprinted in My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles (Dover Publications, 1994), page 39: "It is impossible to cover the mutilated chessboard (with two opposite squares cut off) with 31 dominoes, and the proof is easy."
- ALT1: ... that the mutilated chessboard problem, originally posed as an example of creative insight in human thought, has become a test case for automated reasoning? Source: Creative insight: Black, Max (1946), Critical Thinking: An Introduction To Logic And Scientific Method, Prentice Hall, p. 157, 433. Automated reasoning: Kerber, Manfred; Pollet, Martin (2005), "A tough nut for mathematical knowledge management", in Kohlhase, Michael (ed.), Mathematical Knowledge Management, 4th International Conference, MKM 2005, Bremen, Germany, July 15-17, 2005, Revised Selected Papers, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3863, Springer, pp. 81–95, https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~mmk/papers/05-MKM.html
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/This Census-Taker and Template:Did you know nominations/Reconstructing Womanhood (double QPQ to help reduce DYK reviewing backlog)

Improved to Good Article status by David Eppstein (talk). Self-nominated at 00:27, 19 September 2022 (UTC).

Huh, interesting article! Why not make the hook shorter though:

ALT2: ... that if you remove two opposite corners of a chessboard, you can't cover all squares with dominos?

ALT0 is more precise, but imo it's a little wordy. Again, an interesting article, got me thinking (and checking out other chessboard probelms)! –LordPeterII (talk) 19:08, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Nicely reworded, much catchier. I think the extra precision of ALT0 is not needed in this context; ALT2 is not incorrect (just a little vague about what it means) and any vagueness is cleared up by following the link. Indeed, maybe being a little vague will encourage people to follow the link. I prefer ALT2 over ALT0. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:11, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Full review needed. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:44, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Alright, this is a formal review: Good article, no apparent issues with content (Earwig's finds this, but it clearly states to be copied from Wikipedia). Just out of curiosity @David Eppstein, have you considered running with an image? Either File:Mutilated chessboard vectorized.svg or File:Mutilated chessboard problem example.jpg could be used. –LordPeterII (talk) 10:52, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

The mutilated chessboard

I'd be happy to go with the vectorized one (pictured). I think the other one would not look good at thumbnail size. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:04, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

I was just going to re-promote the hook as a rewording with the image, but I won't because of the issue raised on the DYK talk page despite rewordings not needing a new approval. So I will just approve it like this, although it does add extra unneeded time. SL93 (talk) 19:50, 16 October 2022 (UTC)