Wim Ruitenburg's MATH 1300

Queens

Before we get to the two questions at the bottom of the page, we give a brief introduction of how queens can move and strike other pieces on a game board.

Let us first look at what the strike range of a queeen is. Start with the standard board of size 8 by 8. A queen can strike each piece with which it shares a row, a column, or one of the diagonals on which it stands. In the example below, imagine a queen on the red field on row 6, column 3. Then this queen can strike all pieces on the yellow fields.

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QUESTION 1 How many queens can one put on a square board of size 5 by 5 without one being in striking distance of another? Give an example of such a maximal solution.
QUESTION 2 How many queens can one put on a square board of size 6 by 6 without one being in striking distance of another? Give an example of such a maximal solution.