An Existence Theorem for Room Squares*

Abstract

It is shown that if v is an odd prime power, other than a prime of the form 22n + 1, then there exists a Room square of order v + 1.A room square of order 2n, where n is a positive integer, is an arrangement of 2n objects in a square array of 2 side 2n - 1, such that each of the (2n - 1)2 cells of the array is either-empty or contains exactly two distinct objects; each of the 2n objects appears exactly once in each row and column; and each (unordered) pair of objects occurs in exactly one cell.