  The relationship between the length of a word and the maximum length of its
unbordered factors is investigated in this paper. Consider a finite word w of
length n. We call a word bordered, if it has a proper prefix which is also a
suffix of that word. Let f(w) denote the maximum length of all unbordered
factors of w, and let p(w) denote the period of w. Clearly, f(w) < p(w)+1.
  We establish that f(w) = p(w), if w has an unbordered prefix of length f(w)
and n > 2f(w)-2. This bound is tight and solves the stronger version of a 21
years old conjecture by Duval. It follows from this result that, in general, n
> 3f(w)-3 implies f(w) = p(w) which gives an improved bound for the question
asked by Ehrenfeucht and Silberger in 1979.
