The Mondrian Puzzle: A Connection to Number Theory

Abstract

We obtain partial progress towards answering the question of whether the quantity defined in the Mondrian Puzzle can ever equal 0. More specifically, we obtain a nontrivial lower bound for the cardinality of the set $\{n\leq x: M(n)\neq0 \}$ where $M(n)$ is the quantity appearing in the Mondrian Puzzle and $x$ is the usual quantity that one thinks of as tending to infinity. More surprisingly, we do so by use of number theoretic techniques in juxtaposition to the innately geometric nature of the problem.