• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 18:10
CEST 00:10
KST 07:10
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL21] Ro16 Preview Pt2: All Star5Team Liquid Map Contest #22 - The Finalists14[ASL21] Ro16 Preview Pt1: Fresh Flow9[ASL21] Ro24 Preview Pt2: News Flash10[ASL21] Ro24 Preview Pt1: New Chaos0
Community News
2026 GSL Season 1 Qualifiers11Maestros of the Game 2 announced52026 GSL Tour plans announced14Weekly Cups (April 6-12): herO doubles, "Villains" prevail1MaNa leaves Team Liquid22
StarCraft 2
General
Maestros of the Game 2 announced 2026 GSL Tour plans announced Blizzard Classic Cup @ BlizzCon 2026 - $100k prize pool MaNa leaves Team Liquid Team Liquid Map Contest #22 - The Finalists
Tourneys
RSL Revival: Season 5 - Qualifiers and Main Event Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament GSL CK: More events planned pending crowdfunding 2026 GSL Season 1 Qualifiers Master Swan Open (Global Bronze-Master 2)
Strategy
Custom Maps
[D]RTS in all its shapes and glory <3 [A] Nemrods 1/4 players [M] (2) Frigid Storage
External Content
Mutation # 522 Flip My Base The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 521 Memorable Boss Mutation # 520 Moving Fees
Brood War
General
ASL21 Strategy, Pimpest Plays Discussions Data needed BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ [ASL21] Ro16 Preview Pt2: All Star RepMastered™: replay sharing and analyzer site
Tourneys
[ASL21] Ro16 Group C [Megathread] Daily Proleagues Escore Tournament StarCraft Season 2 [ASL21] Ro16 Group A
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers What's the deal with APM & what's its true value Any training maps people recommend? Fighting Spirit mining rates
Other Games
General Games
Dawn of War IV Starcraft Tabletop Miniature Game Nintendo Switch Thread General RTS Discussion Thread Battle Aces/David Kim RTS Megathread
Dota 2
The Story of Wings Gaming
League of Legends
G2 just beat GenG in First stand
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Vanilla Mini Mafia Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas TL Mafia Community Thread Five o'clock TL Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Russo-Ukrainian War Thread YouTube Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece Anime Discussion Thread [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books Movie Discussion!
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread McBoner: A hockey love story Formula 1 Discussion Cricket [SPORT]
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
[G] How to Block Livestream Ads
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Reappraising The Situation T…
TrAiDoS
lurker extra damage testi…
StaticNine
Broowar part 2
qwaykee
Funny Nicknames
LUCKY_NOOB
Iranian anarchists: organize…
XenOsky
ASL S21 English Commentary…
namkraft
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1332 users

What is a Baxter Permutation?

Blogs > Geovu
Post a Reply
Geovu
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
Estonia1344 Posts
April 27 2011 01:33 GMT
#1
In a recent Day[9] Daily (292), Sean mentions something about a his thesis. From out his lips come the word "Baxter Permutation". Being the good netizen I am I instantly google it as I have never heard of such a thing before. Unfortunately there is no Wikipedia article, so I am basically boned in terms of understanding wtf this is.

Here is the text you find from the first link if you google it ( http://arxiv.org/abs/0805.4180 ) :

Abstract: We present a simple bijection between Baxter permutations of size $n$ and plane bipolar orientations with n edges. This bijection translates several classical parameters of permutations (number of ascents, right-to-left maxima, left-to-right minima...) into natural parameters of plane bipolar orientations (number of vertices, degree of the sink, degree of the source...), and has remarkable symmetry properties. By specializing it to Baxter permutations avoiding the pattern 2413, we obtain a bijection with non-separable planar maps. A further specialization yields a bijection between permutations avoiding 2413 and 3142 and series-parallel maps.


...


...






...


Can someone please translate this into English please? Clearly the person who wrote that paragraph is much smarter than me because that piece of text has a higher ratio of (Bullshit words I can't understand) to (Real words that I understand) than if I were to read something in French or German.

Alternatively if no one knows what a Baxter Permutation, at least tell me what it is used for and what field of science it is used in, so I can know to stay the fuck away from that field when I get into university.

Oracle
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
Canada411 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-27 01:41:59
April 27 2011 01:40 GMT
#2
bijection is a one-to-one and onto mapping from set a to set b
permutation is amount of ways re-arranging a set of objects
edges are lines connecting vertices in graph theory
vertices are nodes

i dont know what a baxter permutation is, but that passage is most likely extremal graph theory


(the article does in no way explain what a baxter permutation is btw, but is most likely a subset of permutations)
Redmark
Profile Joined March 2010
Canada2129 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-27 01:40:51
April 27 2011 01:40 GMT
#3
I don't actually know much math but that looks like discrete mathematics. Graphs and sets and such.
Really there's a lot of stuff in every field that looks really esoteric to laymen. I can read something about theology and wtf for hours.
d3_crescentia
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States4054 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-27 01:46:23
April 27 2011 01:42 GMT
#4
You might want to check out his undergrad senior thesis in math here:

http://www.math.hmc.edu/seniorthesis/archives/2008/splott/splott-2008-thesis.pdf
once, not long ago, there was a moon here
Kon-Tiki
Profile Joined February 2011
United States402 Posts
April 27 2011 01:48 GMT
#5
On April 27 2011 10:42 d3_crescentia wrote:
You might want to check out his undergrad senior thesis in math here:

http://www.math.hmc.edu/seniorthesis/archives/2008/splott/splott-2008-thesis.pdf


The best part of this is that the url mashed "S. Plott" to "splott", which is an awesome word.
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Jayme
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
United States5866 Posts
April 27 2011 01:49 GMT
#6
It's abstract mathematics.

Don't touch that field unless you really love math because it will mind fuck you.
Python is garbage, number 1 advocate of getting rid of it.
munchmunch
Profile Joined October 2010
Canada789 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-27 06:10:26
April 27 2011 02:09 GMT
#7
It's actually not hard to understand. There are several ways to think of permutations, but in this case you can think of a permutation as a list of numbers from 1 to n, with each number occurring exactly once.

For example, when n=3 there are 6 permutations:
1 2 3
1 3 2
2 1 3
2 3 1
3 1 2
3 2 1

Now, what is a Baxter permutation? Basically it is a permutation that avoids a certain pattern. So if you look at the list of numbers and see

... a ... b c ... d ...

such that c < a < d < b then the permutation is not Baxter. (Note that there can be numbers in between a and b and between c and d, but b and c must be adjacent). The other pattern to be avoided is b < d < c < a.

As to why they are useful, I can't say without more reading.

Examples:

2 4 1 3 and
4 1 3 2

are NOT Baxter permutations, but all other permutations with length 4 are Baxter permutations.

Disclaimer: could easily be a mistake here, since I haven't encountered these before.

Edit: see correction by ]343[ below.
emperorchampion
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
Canada9496 Posts
April 27 2011 02:23 GMT
#8
I can read it, but I don't really understand what is going on. What munchmunch wrote definitely makes sense, hopefully Sean will come in and clear anything else up.

The only other thing to say is that his thesis is very kinky :p
TRUEESPORTS || your days as a respected member of team liquid are over
jodogohoo
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Canada2533 Posts
April 27 2011 03:16 GMT
#9
Baxter permutation is before killer started to replace Jaedong as the Zerg Ace for Hwaseung Oz.
emperorchampion
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
Canada9496 Posts
April 27 2011 03:53 GMT
#10
On April 27 2011 12:16 jodogohoo wrote:
Baxter permutation is before killer started to replace Jaedong as the Zerg Ace for Hwaseung Oz.


Hahaha too true!
TRUEESPORTS || your days as a respected member of team liquid are over
]343[
Profile Blog Joined May 2008
United States10328 Posts
April 27 2011 04:02 GMT
#11
On April 27 2011 11:09 munchmunch wrote:
It's actually not hard to understand. There are several ways to think of permutations, but in this case you can think of a permutation as a list of numbers from 1 to n, with each number occurring exactly once.

For example, when n=3 there are 6 permutations:
1 2 3
1 3 2
2 1 3
2 3 1
3 1 2
3 2 1

Now, what is a Baxter permutation? Basically it is a permutation that avoids a certain pattern. So if you look at the list of numbers and see

... a ... b c ... d ...

such that c < a < d < b then the permutation is not Baxter. (Note that there can be numbers in between a and b and between c and d, but b and c must be adjacent). The other pattern to be avoided is b < d < c < a.

As to why they are useful, I can't say without more reading.

Examples:

2 4 1 3 and
4 1 3 2

are NOT Baxter permutations, but all other permutations with length 4 are Baxter permutations.

Disclaimer: could easily be a mistake here, since I haven't encountered these before.


Hmm, I think it says 3 1 4 2 and 2 4 1 3 are not Baxter permutations (yeah, that sounds right, since the inequalities they give are exactly opposite each other.)

A permutation is a rearrangement of an ordered set. What munchmunch says is right, but they try to avoid c < a < d < b and b < d < a < c (just a misreading by him )

So apparently in an amusing coincidence, two different, unrelated people with surname Baxter discovered two different things that could be counted by a certain big expression: Baxter permutations, and plane bipolar maps.

Plane bipolar maps are pretty much a set of points in the plane connected by arrows (directed lines, not necessarily straight) with a certain set of properties (if you start anywhere and follow arrows, you can't get back to where you started; and there are two points on the "outside" of the diagram, one that only has arrows going out, and one that only has arrows going in.)

If we introduce a few more restrictions, and count the number of such maps with a certain number of points/arrows, we can find a one-to-one correspondence to the number of Baxter permutations with certain properties.

This is probably classified as discrete math -> combinatorics -> graph theory / algebraic combinatorics. Looks similar to one of my classes
Writer
munchmunch
Profile Joined October 2010
Canada789 Posts
April 27 2011 06:09 GMT
#12
On April 27 2011 13:02 ]343[ wrote:
Hmm, I think it says 3 1 4 2 and 2 4 1 3 are not Baxter permutations (yeah, that sounds right, since the inequalities they give are exactly opposite each other.)

A permutation is a rearrangement of an ordered set. What munchmunch says is right, but they try to avoid c < a < d < b and b < d < a < c (just a misreading by him )


I think you're right, thanks for the correction.
AzashaRa
Profile Joined February 2011
United States10 Posts
June 19 2011 18:15 GMT
#13
The things Team Liquid has to offer never seize to amaze me. I put my friend to sleep reading this to him. Thank you TL! :D
]343[
Profile Blog Joined May 2008
United States10328 Posts
June 19 2011 21:45 GMT
#14
pretending to know math: a useful talent toi have
Writer
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 3h 51m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
SteadfastSC 166
StarCraft: Brood War
Mini 361
Artosis 301
910 36
NaDa 22
Dota 2
monkeys_forever395
League of Legends
JimRising 271
Super Smash Bros
PPMD45
Heroes of the Storm
Liquid`Hasu416
Other Games
summit1g12239
Grubby5023
FrodaN723
shahzam532
RotterdaM366
C9.Mang0233
KnowMe155
Trikslyr148
Pyrionflax143
Organizations
Other Games
BasetradeTV447
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 16 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• davetesta19
• intothetv
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• blackmanpl 58
• Eskiya23 15
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Other Games
• imaqtpie1215
• Scarra1046
• Shiphtur256
Upcoming Events
RSL Revival
3h 51m
GSL
9h 51m
Afreeca Starleague
11h 51m
Barracks vs Leta
Royal vs Light
WardiTV Map Contest Tou…
12h 51m
RSL Revival
1d 11h
Replay Cast
2 days
The PondCast
2 days
KCM Race Survival
2 days
WardiTV Map Contest Tou…
2 days
CranKy Ducklings
3 days
[ Show More ]
Escore
3 days
RSL Revival
3 days
WardiTV Map Contest Tou…
4 days
Universe Titan Cup
4 days
Rogue vs Percival
Ladder Legends
4 days
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
4 days
BSL
4 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
5 days
WardiTV Map Contest Tou…
5 days
Ladder Legends
5 days
BSL
5 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Wardi Open
6 days
Monday Night Weeklies
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Escore Tournament S2: W3
RSL Revival: Season 4
NationLESS Cup

Ongoing

BSL Season 22
ASL Season 21
CSL 2026 SPRING (S20)
IPSL Spring 2026
KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 2
Proleague 2026-04-20
StarCraft2 Community Team League 2026 Spring
WardiTV TLMC #16
Nations Cup 2026
IEM Rio 2026
PGL Bucharest 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 1
BLAST Open Spring 2026
ESL Pro League S23 Finals
ESL Pro League S23 Stage 1&2
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026
IEM Kraków 2026

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S2: W4
Acropolis #4
BSL 22 Non-Korean Championship
CSLAN 4
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
HSC XXIX
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
Maestros of the Game 2
2026 GSL S2
RSL Revival: Season 5
2026 GSL S1
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.