COMBINATORICS

1. Consider the collection of all three elements drawn from the

set {1, 2,3, 4,......., 299,300} . Determine the number of these subsets for
which the sum of the three elements is a multiple of 3.
2. How many three element subsets of the set {1, 2,3, 4,.....,19, 20} are there
such that the product of the three numbers in the subset is divisible by 4?
3. Let A = {1, 2, 3… 100} and B be a subset of A having 48 elements. Prove
that B has two distinct elements x and y whose sum is divisible by 11.
4. There are are seventeen distinct positive integers such that none of them has
prime factor exceeding 10. Show that the product of some of two of them
is a square.
5. Given seven arbitrary distinct real numbers, show that there exist two
x−y 1
numbers x and y such that 0 < < .
1 + xy 3
6. There are six cities in an island and every two of them are conne connected
cted either
by train or by bus. Show that there are three cities which are mutually
connected by the same mode of transport.
7. Suppose A1, A2 , A3 , A4 , A5 , A6 are six sets sets each with four elements and
B1, B2 , B3 ,......., Bn −1, Bn are n sets each two elements such that
A1 ∪ A2 ∪ ....... ∪ A6 = B1 ∪ B2 ∪ ......... ∪ Bn = S ( say ) . Given that each
element of S belongs to exactly four of the Ai ' s and exactly three of the
B j ' s ,find n.
8. Two boxes contain between them 65 balls of several different sizes. Each
ball is white, black, red or yellow. If you take any five balls of same colour,
at least two of them will always be of the same size (radius). Prove that
there are at least three balls which lie in the same box, have the same colour
and are of the same size.
9. There are two urns each containing an arbitrary number of balls. Both are
non empty to begin with. We are allowed two types of operations:
A>> Remove an equal number
number of balls simultaneously from both urns;
B>> Double the number of balls in any one them.
Prove that after performing the above operations finitely many times, both
the urns can be made empty.
10. Let A denote a subset of the set {1,11,21,31,.......,541,551} having
having the
property that no two elements of A add up to 552. Prove that A cannot
have more that 28 elements.
11. Find the number of permutations, ( P1 ,P2 ,P3 ,P4 ,P5 ,P6 ) , of (1,2,3,4,5,6 ) such
that for any k, 1≤ k ≤ 5 , ( P1 ,P2 ,...........,Pk ) does not form a permutation of
(1,2,3,.......,k ) .[ That is, P1 ≠ 1;( P1,P2 ) is not a permutation of 1, 2, etc. ]

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12. Let A be a subset of {1,2,3,........,2n −1,2n} containing ( n + 1) elements. Show
that
that (a). Some two elements of A are relatively prime;
(b). Some two elements of A have the property that one divides the other.
13. There are eight points in the plane such that no three of them are collinear.
Find the maximum number of triangles formed formed out of these points such
that no two triangles have more than one vertex in common.
14. How many increasing 3- 3-term geometric progressions can be obtained from
{ }
the sequence 1,2,22 ,23 ,.........,2n ? (e.g., 22 ,25 ,28 is a 3-
3-term G.P. for n ≥ 8 .)
15. Let A denotes the set of all numbers between 1 and 700 which are divisible
by 3 and let B denotes the set of all numbers between 1 and 300 which are
divisible by 7. Find the number of all ordered pairs (a, b) such
that a ∈A ,b ∈B ,a ≠ b and a + b is even.
16. If A ⊂ {1,2,3,......,100}, A = 50 such that no two numbers from A have their
sum as 100 show that A contains a square.
17. Find the number of unordered pairs {A ,B} (i.e., the pairs {A ,B} and {B , A} are
considered to be the same) of subsets of an n- n-elements set X which satisfy
conditions: (a) A ≠ B ; (b) A ∪B = X . ;
the conditions:
18. Find the minimum possible least common multiple multiple of twenty (not
necessarily distinct) natural numbers whose sum is 801.
19. Find the number of quadratic polynomials, ax 2 + bx + c ,which satisfy the
following conditions:
( I ) a, b, c are distinct;
( ii ) a ,b ,c ∈{1,2,3,..............,1999} and
( )
( iii ) ( x + 1) | ax 2 + bx + c .
20. Show that the number of 3- 3-elements subsets {a ,b ,c } of the set
{1,2,3,.........,63} with a + b + c < 95 is less than the number of those
with a + b + c > 95 .
21. Let X be a set containing n elements. Find the number of all ordered
triplets (A, B, C) of subsets of X such that A is a subset of B and B is a
proper subset of C.
22. Find the number of 4 × 4 arrays whose entries are from the set {0,1,2,3} and
which are such that the sum of the members in each of the four rows and in
each of the four columns is divisible by 4. (An m × n array is an
arrangement of mn numbers is m rows and n columns.) columns.)
23. There is a 2n × 2n array (matrix) consisting of 0’s and 1’s and there are
exactly 3n zeroes. Show that it is possible to remove all the zeroes by
deleting some n rows and some n columns.
24. For which positive integral values of n can can the set {1,2,3,..........,4n} be split
into n disjoint 4 4--element subsets {a ,b ,c ,d } such that in each of these sets
a = ( b + c + d ) /3 .

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25. For any natural number n ,( n ≥ 3 ) , let f ( n ) denote denote the number of non-
non-
congruent integer-integer-sided triangles with perimeter n, (e.g.,
f ( 3 ) = 1, f ( 4 ) = 0, f ( 7 ) = 2 ). Show that
( a ) f (1999 ) > f (1996 ); ( b ) f ( 2000 ) = f (1997 ) .
26. The sixty-
sixty-four squares of a chess board are filled with positive integers one
on each in such a way that each each integer is the average of integers on the
neighbouring squares. (Two squares are neighbours if they share a common
edge or vertex. Thus a square can have 8, 5 or 3 neighbours depending on
its positions). Show that all the sixty- sixty-four entries are in fact equal.
equal.
27. Let T be the set of all triples ( a ,b ,c ) of integers such that 1≤ a ≤ b ≤ c ≤ 6 . For
each triple ( a ,b ,c ) in T, T, take the product abc . Add all these products
corresponding to all triples triples in T. Prove that the sum is divisible by 7.
28. Solve the following alphamatic given that different letters stand for
FORTY
TEN
TEN
different digits 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 :
_____
SIXTY
_____
29. In a class of 25 students, there are 17 cyclists, 13 swimmers and 8 weight
lifters and no one is all the three. In a certain mathematics examination 6
students got grades D or E. If the cyclists, swimmers and weight lifters all
got grade B or C, determine the number of students who got grade A. Also
find the number of of cyclists who are swimmers.
30. Five men A, B, C, D, E are wearing caps of black or white colour without
each knowing the colour of his cap. It is known that a man wearing a black
cap always speak the truth while a man wearing a white cap always lies. If
they make the following statements, find the colour of the cap worn by
A : I see three black and one white cap .
B : I see four white caps .
each of them:
C : I see one black and three white caps .
D : I see four black caps.
31. Let f be a bijective (one- (one-one and onto) function from the set
A = {1,2,3,.................,n} to itself. Show that there is a positive integer M > 1 such
that f M ( i ) = f ( i ) for each i ∈A . [ f M denotes the composite function
f
f
......
f repeated M times].
32. Show that there exists a convex convex hexagon in the plane such that:
(a). All the interior angles are equal.
(b). Its sides are 1,2,3,4,5,6 in some order.

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33. There are ten objects with total weight 20, each of the weights being a
positive integer. Given that none of the the weights exceed 10, prove that the
ten objects can be divided into two groups that the balance each other
when placed on the two pans of a balance.
34. At each of the eight corners of a cube write +1 or -1 arbitrarily. Then, on
each of the six faces of the cube
cube write the product of the numbers written
at the four corners of that face. Add all the fourteen numbers so written
down. Is it possible to arrange the numbers +1 and -1 at the corner initially
so that this final sum is zero?
35. Given the 7-
7-element set A = {a ,b ,c ,d ,e ,f ,g} , find a collection T of 3-
3-element
subsets of A such that each pair of elements from A occurs exactly in one
of the subsets of T.

TOOLKIT FOR COMBINATORICS

1 >> A: The Sum Rule :: If A and B are two disjoint finite sets, then
A ∪ B = A + B . In general, A1, A2 ,..........., An are n pair wise disjoint
finite sets then A1 ∪ A2 ∪ ........... ∪ An = A1 + A2 + ........ + An .
B: The Product Rule :: If A and B are two finite sets, then
A × B = A . B . In general, A1, A2 ,..........., An are n finite sets then
A1 × A2 × ........... × An = A1 . A2 ..... An .
2>> PIGEON-
PIGEON-HOLE Principle: If (n+1) objects are distributed at random
into n boxes, then at least one box has at least two objects. A more
general form of this principle is as follows: If (nk+1) objects are
distributed at random into n boxes, then some box has at least (k+1)
objects.
3 >> Principle of Inclusion & Exclusion: If A and B are two finite sets,
then A ∪ B = A + B − A ∩ B .
For three finite sets A, B, C we have
have
A ∪ B ∪C = A + B + C − A ∩ B − B ∩C − C ∩ A + A ∩ B ∩C .