Was it? It was an open problem to Knuth - who generally knows how to search literature. However there is enough literature to search that it wouldn't be a surprise at all to discover it was already solved but he just used slightly different terms and so didn't find it. Or maybe it was sovled because this is a specialization of something that looks unrelated and so he wouldn't have realized it when he read it. Or...
Overall I'm going with unsolved, because Knuth is a smart person who I'd expect to not miss the above. I'm also sure he falls for the above all the time even though the majority of the time he doesn't.
alt Hacker News
Was it? It was an open problem to Knuth - who generally knows how to search literature. However there is enough literature to search that it wouldn't be a surprise at all to discover it was already solved but he just used slightly different terms and so didn't find it. Or maybe it was sovled because this is a specialization of something that looks unrelated and so he wouldn't have realized it when he read it. Or...
Overall I'm going with unsolved, because Knuth is a smart person who I'd expect to not miss the above. I'm also sure he falls for the above all the time even though the majority of the time he doesn't.