0% found this document useful (0 votes)
46 views3 pages

Recitation Guide - Week 4: 0 1 N 1 N 1 J J N

This document provides solutions to three problems involving combinatorial proofs and mathematical induction. Problem 1 uses induction to prove an inequality involving sums and powers of 10. Problem 2 uses induction to prove that the maximum number of elements in the power set of a natural set with maximum element n is 2n+1. Problem 3 provides a combinatorial proof that the number of ways to hire m people from n where k can be managers is the same as the binomial coefficient expression given.

Uploaded by

Chenyang Fang
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
0% found this document useful (0 votes)
46 views3 pages

Recitation Guide - Week 4: 0 1 N 1 N 1 J J N

This document provides solutions to three problems involving combinatorial proofs and mathematical induction. Problem 1 uses induction to prove an inequality involving sums and powers of 10. Problem 2 uses induction to prove that the maximum number of elements in the power set of a natural set with maximum element n is 2n+1. Problem 3 provides a combinatorial proof that the number of ways to hire m people from n where k can be managers is the same as the binomial coefficient expression given.

Uploaded by

Chenyang Fang
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

CIS 160

Recitation Guide - Week 4


Topics Covered: Induction, Combinatorial Proofs

Problem 1: Prove using induction that for any positive integer n and for any d0 , d1 , . . . , dn−1 ∈
[0..9] we have:
n−1
X
dj · 10j < 10n
j=0

Solution:
Base Case: n = 1.
0
X
dj · 10j = dj · 100 = dj < 10 = 101
j=0

dj can only take values from 0 through 9, thus dj < 10. This concludes the Base Case.
Induction Hypothesis: Assume that the claim is true when n = k, for some integer k ≥ 1 such
that:
k−1
X
dj · 10j < 10k
j=0

Induction Step: We now want to show that our claim holds when n = k + 1. In other words, we
seek to show that:
Xk
dj · 10j < 10k+1
j=0

We see that we can show this as follows:


k
X k−1
X
dj · 10j = dk · 10k + dj · 10j (splitting the sum)
j=0 j=0

< dk · 10k + 10k (by IH)


k
= (dk + 1) · 10
≤ (9 + 1) · 10k
= 10k+1

Thus, we have shown our claim is true when n = k + 1, concluding our Induction Step and
completing our proof.

1
Problem 2: A set S is natural if S ⊂ N. Prove that if the maximum element in a natural set B
is n, then the power set of B has at most 2n+1 elements.
Solution:
Let P (k) be true if and only if the claim holds for natural sets with maximum element k.
Base Case: When k = 0, B = {0}. P(B) = {∅, {0}} and |P(B)| = 2. 20+1 = 2, 2 ≤ 2. Hence,
P (0) is true.
Induction Hypothesis: Assume P (k) is true for some k ≥ 0, k ∈ N.
Bogus Induction Step: To prove that P (k + 1) is true, consider a natural set with maximum
element k. The cardinality of its power set is at most 2k+1 by the induction hypothesis. Add k + 1
to the set. The cardinality of the power set of our new natural set is at most 2k+1 ∗ 2 = 2k+2
because for each element of our old power set, we can either include or not include k + 1. This
doubles the cardinality. Thus, P (k + 1) is true.
Why is this bogus? If we start with a natural set whose maximum element is k, we know that the
set contains k. When we added k + 1 to the set, our maximum element became k + 1 but our set
by definition still contains k. Having a natural set with k + 1 as the maximum element does not
necessarily mean that k is also in the set and thus the proof is not correct, since we haven’t covered
cases where the maximum element is k + 1 but k isn’t in the set. For example, we haven’t covered
the following case: {0, 2, k + 1}, where k > 3.
Induction Step: To prove that P (k + 1) is true, consider a natural set A with maximum element
k + 1. Let us remove the maximum element k + 1 of this set to construct a new set B, so that
B = A \ {k + 1}. We now have two cases:
Case 1: k ∈ B
If k ∈ B then it must be the maximum element in B. Therefore we can apply our induction
hypothesis and conclude that |P(B)| ≤ 2k+1 . We can now construct P(A) from P(B). Note that
for each subset x ∈ P(B), x ∈ P(A) and x∪{k +1} ∈ P(A) – this means that each element in P(B)
have exactly 2 corresponding elements in P(A) (one without k + 1 and one with it). Hence

|P(A)| = 2 · |P(B)| ≤ 2 · 2k+1 = 2k+2

Case 2: k 6∈ B
If k 6∈ B then it must have have another maximum element ` < k. Let us construct a new set
C = B ∪ {k}. Note that C must have k as its maximum element by construction. Applying the
induction hypothesis, we know that |P(C)| ≤ 2k+1 . Now let us consider D = C ∪ {k + 1}. By
similar arguments to that in Case 1, we have that

|P(D)| = 2 · |P(C)| ≤ 2 · 2k+1 = 2k+2

Lastly, note that A = D \ {k}, so we necessarily have that |A| ≤ |D| (we can actually be stricter
here, but we don’t care at this point since we have what we want.) Therefore we have:

|P(A)| ≤ |P(D)| ≤ 2k+2

We have shown P(A) ≤ 2k+2 in all cases and thus proven the induction step.

2
Problem 3:
Give a combinatorial proof for the following, where m ≤ n:
m     
X n n−k n
= 2m
k m−k m
k=0

Solution:
Consider the following counting problem:
Given a set of n people, how many ways are there to hire m people such that any
number of those m people can also be designated as managers?
RHS: We use two steps to hire people and designate managers as follows.
Step 1: Choose the m people who are hired out of the n job applicants.
Step 2: Designate any number of the m people as managers.
n

In Step 1, we are simply choosing m out of n items. Thus there are m ways to do Step 1. In Step
2, we are taking a subset m
n
 of m items, so there are 2 ways to do Step 2. Applying the multiplication
rule, there are 2m m ways to hire people and designate managers, which is the RHS.
LHS: Let S be a set that includes all of the ways that we can hire people and designate managers.
We can partition S into sets S0 , S1 , S2 , . . . , Sm where set Sk (0 ≤ k ≤ m) represents all of the ways
that we can hire m people and designate exactly k managers. For each k, |Sk | can be calculated as
follows.
Step 1: Choose the k managers that we want from the n total people.
Step 2: Hire people from the remaining n − k people so that we end up with a total of
m employees.
In Step 1, we are simply choosing k people out of n, so there are nk ways to do Step 1. In Step


2, we must hire additional people so that we have a total of m employees. Since we have already
hired k people, we can only hire m − k more people. In addition, we cannot choose any of those
 they have already been hired), so there are n − k people to choose from.
k people to hire (since
n−k
Thus, there are m−k ways to do Step 2.

Applying the multiplication rule, there are nk m−k


 n−k 
ways to hire m people and designate exactly
k managers.
Thus, the total number of ways to hire m people and designate any number of managers is
m m   
X X n n−k
|S| = |Sk | =
k m−k
k=0 k=0

which is the LHS.

You might also like