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de Bruijn's theorem

de Bruijn's theorem proper noun: a theorem about packing congruent rectangular bricks into larger rectangular boxes so that no space is left over. It states that a "harmonic brick" (one in which each side length is a multiple of the next smaller side length) can only be packed into a box whose dimensions are multiples of the brick's dimensions.

Proper noun

de Bruijn's theorem

  1. A theorem about packing congruent rectangular bricks into larger rectangular boxes so that no space is left over. It states that a "harmonic brick" (one in which each side length is a multiple of the next smaller side length) can only be packed into a box whose dimensions are multiples of the brick's dimensions.

Origin of de Bruijn's theorem

Devised by the Dutch mathematician Nicolaas Govert de Bruijn in a 1969 paper.

Questions about de Bruijn's theorem

What does de Bruijn's theorem mean?
De Bruijn's theorem means a theorem about packing congruent rectangular bricks into larger rectangular boxes so that no space is left over. It states that a "harmonic brick" (one in which each side length is a multiple of the next smaller side length) can only be packed into a box whose dimensions are multiples of the brick's dimensions.
What part of speech is de Bruijn's theorem?
De Bruijn's theorem is a proper noun.

Words near de Bruijn's theorem in the dictionary

  1. de Bruijn sequence
  2. de Bruijn sequences
  3. de Bruijn tori
  4. de Bruijn torus
  5. de Bruijn toruses
  6. de Bruijn's theorem
  7. de Bruijn-Erdős theorem
  8. de Bruijn-Newman constant
  9. De Bruyn
  10. de Bryan
  11. de Burgh

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: de Bruijn's theorem (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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