The White Album Puzzle: A Math Problem With Deep Connections to Computer Science

Imagine being given a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of the cover of the Beatles’ White Album, which is famously almost entirely white.

Imagine being given a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of the cover of the Beatles’ White Album, which is famously almost entirely white. What’s worse, instead of solving it directly, you are only allowed to take a few pieces randomly out of the box, examine them, and then put them back into the box. How long would it take you to fully reconstruct the White Album cover, assembling your information piece by piece?

This strange little problem has deep connections with a computer science problem called trace reconstruction, as well as the classic graph theory problem of graph reconstruction, with a rich history and many active lines of current research. Join Rik Sengupta, Research Scientist at IBM Research in Cambridge, as he sets up the problem mathematically, gives some insights into solving it, and connects it to important computational problems from today such as mapping the internet, understanding the power of random coin flips, and identifying evolutionary patterns to discover common ancestors of seemingly unrelated animals.

Math Encounters is MoMath’s popular free public presentation series celebrating the spectacular world of mathematics, produced with support from Simons Foundation International. Light refreshments will be served.

Math Encounters is MoMath’s popular free public presentation series celebrating the spectacular world of mathematics, produced with support from Simons Foundation International. For further information, call the National Museum of Mathematics at 212-542-0566 or email Register to attend

4:00 pm session 7:00 pm session