2015/01/24 by Klara Stokes, Stokes, Klara
Mathematics · #Combinatorics (math.CO) #FOS: Mathematics #math.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1501.06056
arxiv created 2015/01/24 · arxiv updated 2015/01/27
In a paper from 1886, Martinetti enumerated small v3-configurations. One of his tools was a construction that permits to produce a (v+1)3-configuration from a v3-configuration. He called configurations that were not constructible in this way irreducible configurations. According to his definition, the irreducible configurations are Pappus' configuration and four infinite families of configurations. In 2005, Boben defined a simpler and more general definition of irreducibility, for which only two v3-configurations, the Fano plane and Pappus' configuration, remained irreducible. The present article gives a generalization of Boben's reduction for both balanced and unbalanced (vr,bk)-configurations, and proves several general results on augmentability and reducibility. Motivation for this work is found, for example, in the counting and enumeration of configurations.