Combinatorial Designs

Block designs, Latin squares, and Steiner systems.


foundation tier

Combinatorial Designs. Block designs, Latin squares, and Steiner systems.

Foundations and canonical references

The standard treatments of combinatorial designs approach the subject from complementary angles. Colbourn, Handbook of Combinatorial Designs (2006) is the anchor reference for the subject and lays out the core definitions, theorems, and worked examples that practitioners return to. Beth, Design Theory (1999) gives a parallel, more proof-oriented exposition of the same material and is widely used as a graduate text.

Open methodological questions for combinatorial designs include sharpening the bridges between foundational theory and computational practice, extending classical results to broader or more structured settings, and integrating the techniques surveyed above with adjacent mathematical disciplines. The references listed in this page are the entry points that current work builds on.

Prerequisites

Sources

  • textbook · primary · 2006
    Handbook of Combinatorial Designs
    colbourn-2006, dinitz-2006
  • textbook · primary · 1999
    Design Theory
    beth-1999, jungnickel-1999, lenz-1999

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  1. 01

    Steiner Systems and t-Designs

    Existence and construction; Keevash's breakthrough.

  2. 02

    Coding-Theoretic Designs

    Codes and designs from finite geometry.


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