{"paper":{"title":"The $k$-out-of-$n$ picture-hanging puzzle: shorter solutions for small $k$ and $n-k$","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["math.GR"],"primary_cat":"math.CO","authors_text":"Tom Verhoeff","submitted_at":"2026-05-26T19:31:30Z","abstract_excerpt":"The picture-hanging puzzle, popularized by Demaine et al. (2014), asks for a way to wrap a wire around $n$ nails such that the picture hangs as long as fewer than $k$ nails are removed, but falls as soon as any $k$ are removed. Solutions correspond to words in the free group $F_n$. We give explicit, deterministic, polynomial-length constructions for two regimes: $2$-out-of-$n$ with word length at most $\\tfrac{8}{3}n^{\\log_2 6} - 4n^2$, and $(n-2)$-out-of-$n$ with word length $6n\\log_2(n/2)$, both for $n$ a power of two. These improve on W\\\"astlund's quasi-polynomial deterministic construction "},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2605.27617","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2605.27617/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}