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A Steiner Triple System on a set X is a collection T of 3-element subsets of X such that every pair of elements of X is contained in exactly one of the triples in T. An example considered by Plücker in 1835 is the affine plane of order three, which consists of 12 triples on a set of 9 points. Plücker observed that a necessary condition for the existence of a Steiner Triple System on a set with n elements is that n be congruent to 1 or 3 mod 6. In 1846, Kirkman showed that this necessary condition is also sufficient. In 1974, Wilson conjectured an approximate formula for the number of such systems. We will outline a proof of this
conjecture, and a more general estimate for the number of Steiner systems. Our main tool is the technique of Randomised Algebraic Construction, which
we introduced to resolve a question of Steiner from 1853 on the existence of designs.