Join the Search for a Better Ruler

The search for useful rulers is heating up. This search is not for kings, queens, CEO's, or ordinary household metersticks, but for optimal Golomb rulers. These rulers are named for Solomon Golomb, a mathematician and engineer, who was among the first to study their application and construction in the 1970's. A Golomb ruler is a ruler whereon all the distances between every pair of marks (including the marks coincident with its ends) are distinct.

Such rulers are designed as if a high premium exists on etching and numbering the marks. Despite a paucity of marks, carefully constructed Golomb rulers can measure many different distances.