Ponder This Challenge - May 2026 - The Powers of a Binary Matrix
Gadi Aleksandrowicz·2026-05-01·via IBM Research
This riddle was proposed by Lorenzo Gianferrari Pini and Radu-Alexandru Todor - thanks!
Given a square binary matrix of order NN, A∈M(Z2)N×NA\in M(\mathbb{Z}_2)_{N\times N} such there is exactly one "1" value in each row and column of AA, we can find the lowest m>0m>0 such that Am=IA^m=I, the identity matrix.
Denote by g(N)g(N) the maximum such mm when going over all the matrices in M(Z2)N×NM(\mathbb{Z}_2)_{N\times N} satisfying the above condition.
For example, g(10)=30g(10)=30 and g(50)=180180g(50) = 180180.
Your goal: Find g(106) mod (109+7)g(10^6)\ \text{mod}\ (10^9+7).
A bonus "*" will be given for finding g(108) mod (109+7)g(10^8)\ \text{mod}\ (10^9+7).
Solvers
*King Pig (1/5/2026 9:49 AM IDT)
*Alper Halbutogullari (1/5/2026 11:49 AM IDT)
Ahmet Yuksel (1/5/2026 1:22 PM IDT)
*Lazar Ilic (1/5/2026 1:51 PM IDT)
*Paul Lupascu (1/5/2026 3:38 PM IDT)
*Jean-François Hermant (1/5/2026 5:48 PM IDT)
*Bertram Felgenhauer (1/5/2026 7:20 PM IDT)
Stéphane Higueret (1/5/2026 10:37 PM IDT)
Hakan Summakoğlu (2/5/2026 12:38 AM IDT)
*Prashant Wankhede (2/5/2026 12:54 AM IDT)
*Carter Tran (2/5/2026 3:46 AM IDT)
*Jack Saleeby (2/5/2026 5:58 AM IDT)
*Quentin Higueret (2/5/2026 6:03 AM IDT)
*Pitiwat Chimplee (2/5/2026 2:22 PM IDT)
*Richard Gosiorovsky (2/5/2026 3:09 PM IDT)
David Greer (2/5/2026 5:36 PM IDT)
Simon Atileh (2/5/2026 10:46 PM IDT)
*Bert Dobbelaere (2/5/2026 11:10 PM IDT)
*Martin Thorne (3/5/2026 5:51 AM IDT)
Latchezar Christov (3/5/2026 10:15 PM IDT)
Shirish Chinchalkar (3/5/2026 10:50 PM IDT)
*Daniel Bitin (4/5/2026 12:30 AM IDT)
*Philip Naveen (4/5/2026 5:10 AM IDT)
*Franciraldo Cavalcante (4/5/2026 5:13 AM IDT)
*Junyu Zhou (4/5/2026 7:30 AM IDT)
*Stephen Ebert (4/5/2026 9:27 AM IDT)
*Jiri Spitalsky (4/5/2026 10:38 AM IDT)
Nadir S. (4/5/2026 11:46 AM IDT)
*Guangxi Liu (4/5/2026 11:53 AM IDT)
Michael Liepelt (4/5/2026 11:55 AM IDT)
Juergen Koehl (4/5/2026 12:10 PM IDT)
Hugo Pfoertner (4/5/2026 9:46 PM IDT)
Dominik Reichl (4/5/2026 11:31 PM IDT)
*Dawson Yao (5/5/2026 12:00 AM IDT)
*Rethna Pulikkoonattu (5/5/2026 12:13 AM IDT)
Jason Shaw (5/5/2026 4:22 AM IDT)
*Kang Jin Cho (5/5/2026 5:15 AM IDT)
Amos Guler (5/5/2026 2:35 PM IDT)
*Shouky Dan & Tamir Ganor (5/5/2026 4:57 PM IDT)
Jan Fricke (5/5/2026 5:01 PM IDT)
*Evan Semet (5/5/2026 5:30 PM IDT)
William Hakob Logian (6/5/2026 9:25 AM IDT)
Mickle Jiao (6/5/2026 3:12 PM IDT)
*Sanandan Swaminathan (7/5/2026 3:21 AM IDT)
Siebel Goose (7/5/2026 8:06 AM IDT)
*Daniel Chong Jyh Tar (7/5/2026 5:31 PM IDT)
John Tromp (7/5/2026 6:57 PM IDT)
Karl D’Souza (7/5/2026 10:38 PM IDT)
*Arpit Shrivastava (8/5/2026 11:37 AM IDT)
Trevor Nerbas (8/5/2026 7:27 PM IDT)
*Liubing Yu (8/5/2026 11:26 PM IDT)
Chern Arthas (9/5/2026 10:07 AM IDT)
Christoph Baumgarten (9/5/2026 4:34 PM IDT)
Kipp Johnson (9/5/2026 10:54 PM IDT)
*Ashwin Mathews (10/5/2026 10:33 PM IDT)
*Erik Hostens (12/5/2026 9:44 AM IDT)
Fabio Michele Negroni (12/5/2026 7:20 PM IDT)
Alex Fleischer (12/5/2026 8:24 PM IDT)
Dan Dima (13/5/2026 9:32 AM IDT)
Nick Trapp (14/5/2026 12:19 AM IDT)
Morteza Esmaeili (15/5/2026 12:07 AM IDT)
*Vladimir Volevich (15/5/2026 2:10 PM IDT)
Armin Krauss (15/5/2026 5:46 PM IDT)
Marc Casas (16/5/2026 1:00 AM IDT)
Arthur Vause (16/5/2026 2:59 PM IDT)
Dieter Beckerle (16/5/2026 6:40 PM IDT)
Michael Vahle (17/5/2026 3:32 PM IDT)
Hansraj Nahata & Govind Jujare (18/5/2026 1:48 AM IDT)