I'm not a mathematician, I'm a programmer. A client wants a spreadsheet to do the following. I would just Google it, but I don't know what maths terms to use to look it up. I think it's not possible, but would love someone to either a) prove it can't be done, or b) tell me it can be done, and how. Thanks!
Take 32 people and group them into 32 groups of 4, such that no 2 people ever meet more than once.
The original spec said that there are 4 months, with 8 meetings of 4 in each month. Each person goes to 1 meeting a month, but should never see anyone they have been to a meeting with before.
I'm sure I've tagged this wrong, and I'm sure someone out there will find this trivial. Thanks for all input Andy
Let each block represent a month, and each person have the same coordinates within the block for each month. The $8$ colors each represent a meeting group for that month. As an example, the highlighted person (in tan, in that black box) will end up meeting, over $4$ months, with those $12$ highlighted in light grey. In the first month they are in the orange group, in the second the light red group, the third also in the light red, and in the fourth month in the yellow meeting group. The colors are only labels to split up the $32$ people each month; it does not matter at all that a person is in the same color group in different months.