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Eventown Theorem


The Eventown theorem states that a family of subsets of an n-element set has at most 2^(|_n/2_|) members if each member and the intersection of every two distinct members have even size. Here |_x_| is the floor function. Equality is attained by taking all unions of a fixed collection of disjoint pairs (Banerjee and Dewan 2026).

Banerjee and Dewan (2026) extended the theorem to multisets on n elements with each multiplicity at most m. The multiplicity of an element in an intersection is the minimum of its two multiplicities, and size counts all repetitions. If E_m(n) is the maximum size of a family with even member and pairwise-intersection cardinalities, then

 E_(2q)(n)=(q+1)^n

and

 E_(2q+1)(n)=(q+1)^(n-2k)((q+1)^2+1)^k,

where k=|_n/2_|, q>=1 in the even case, and q>=0 in the odd case. The case m=1 recovers the set theorem. Banerjee and Dewan (2026) also characterized all maximum families for m>=2.


See also

Family, Intersection, Multiset, Subset, Union

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References

Banerjee, A. and Dewan, A. "An Eventown Result for Multisets." 15 Oct 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.21636.

Cite this as:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Eventown Theorem." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/EventownTheorem.html

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