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The document is an exam for a Ph.D program in discrete mathematics. It contains 8 questions testing concepts in discrete structures like the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, binary encoding of messages, combinatorics, graph theory including spanning trees and planar graphs, and algorithms. Students are asked to solve problems, prove statements, and determine possibilities based on given conditions of an inter-IAI chess competition.

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Manabendra Giri
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62 views4 pages

Question 1

The document is an exam for a Ph.D program in discrete mathematics. It contains 8 questions testing concepts in discrete structures like the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, binary encoding of messages, combinatorics, graph theory including spanning trees and planar graphs, and algorithms. Students are asked to solve problems, prove statements, and determine possibilities based on given conditions of an inter-IAI chess competition.

Uploaded by

Manabendra Giri
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Institute for Advancing Intelligence (IAI), TCG CREST

End-Semestral Examination
Ph.D Program Session: 2021–2022
Discrete Mathematics

Date: 18.01.2021 Marks: 100 Time: 5 Hours


Answer as much as you can. Total marks is 120 and the
maximum you can score is 100. Copying is strictly prohibited.

1. Tower of Hanoi (ToH) is a mathematical puzzle where we have three


rods and n disks namely d1 , . . . , dn (increasing order of size). The
objective of the puzzle is to move the entire stack from rod 1 to rod
3, obeying the following simple rules:

• Only one disk can be moved at a time.


• Each move consists of taking the upper disk from one of the
stacks and placing it on top of another stack i.e. a disk can only
be moved if it is the uppermost disk on a stack.
• No disk may be placed on top of a smaller disk.

Now consider the following problems and find the solution:

(a) Assume that moving disk di from one rod to another takes i unit
time. How much time is required to solve the problem?
(b) Suppose you are not allowed to move any disk directly from rod
1 to rod 3, and vice versa (i.e. every move should involve rod 2
). So, if you start with a single disk, it will take 2 moves (rod
1 to rod 2, then rod 2 to rod 3). Find the minimum number of
moves required for n = 2, and then try to find an expression for
the minimum number of moves required for general n.

[6+9=15]

2. (a) Suppose Saikat would like to send some information using a se-
quence of binary digits, 0 and 1. Assume sending the bit 0 takes
1 unit of time, while sending the bit 1 takes 2 units of time. Here
the size of a message will be defined as the number of units time
it takes. How many different messages can Saikat send in n time
units?

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(b) The private nursing home Bpollo is charging INR 780 for the
Covid vaccine and you have to pay the exact amount in a vending
machine placed in the nursing home. Determine the number ways
Shreya may pay the amount for both the cases (i) where the order
in which the notes are given does not matter, and (ii) when the
order does matter. Assume that the machine accepts notes of
denomination 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 2000. [7+8=15]
3. (a) Prove that Σnk=0 3k nk = 4n .


(b) Tamojit brings 30 different chocolates in the lab. Find the num-
ber of ways in which he can distribute the chocolates among his
15 friends at IAI ensuring that everyone gets at least one choco-
late. [Note: Tamojit knows all of them, so he can distinguish
between any two.]
(c) Find out the number of ways in which Tamojit can distribute 20
chocolates among 10 administrative staffs? [Assume that Tamojit
can not distinguish the adminstrative staffs and he distributes the
chocolates without any restriction.] [3+6+6=15]
4. (a) Find the number of spanning trees of K10 .
(b) Show that, for each value of n, the graph associated with the
alcohol Cn H2n+1 OH is a tree. Use the fact that each carbon,
oxygen, hydrogen atom must be connected to exactly 4, 2, 1
many atoms respectively.
(c) Suppose we have an undirected graph with weights that can be
either positive or negative. Do Prim’s and Kruskal’s algorithim
produce a MST for such a graph?
(d) Design an efficient algorithm to find the longest path between
two nodes in a weighted graph. Your algorithm should work for
all graphs (negative weight edges are allowed). [2+3+3+7=15]
5. (a) Prove that, if G = (V, E) is a maximal planar graph (|V | ≥ 4),
then the degree of every vertex of G is at least 3.
(b) Use the above result to show that every simple planar graph G
with |V | ≥ 4 has at least four vertices of degree less than 6.
(c) Let G be a simple graph with 19 edges, and degree of each vertex
is greater than 3. Knowing nothing else about G, find (i) the
maximum number of vertices that G could have, (ii) the max-
imum number of vertices that G could have for which one can
conclude whether G is planar or not. [4+5+6=15]

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6. (a) How many colors do you need to edge color a bi-partite graph?
(b) There are 12 radio stations in India broadcasting music in local
languages: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K and L. Each radio
station has a specific area in which people can listen to it, as
drawn below. Unfortunately, some areas overlap. The officers

of All India Radio can license specific wave frequency to each


station. But, they want to use the minimal amount of different
frequencies, in order to minimize costs. Nevertheless, in an area
of overlap, each radio station has to have different frequency;
otherwise the listeners would not be able to listen to their station.
Formulate the problem as a graph theoretic problem and find how
to distribute the frequencies amongst the radio stations so that
minimal amount of different frequencies is used? [3+12=15]
7. (a) Two married couples want to cross a river. They can only use
a boat that can carry one or two people from one shore to the
other shore. Each husband is extremely jealous and is not willing
to leave his wife with the other husband, either in the boat or on
shore. How can these four people reach the opposite shore?
(b) Given the 5 × 5 checkerboard with a few blocks removed (marked
with ×), how can you figure out whether it is possible to tile the

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rest of the board with dominoes (a domino being two adjacent
squares)? Use your approach to solve the generalized version of
the problem i.e., given an m × n checkerboard with a few blocks
removed, can you tile it with dominoes? [6+9=15]

8. Consider an inter-IAI chess competition where each plays exactly once


with everyone else. Assume each match has a winner, tie-breakers are
used for matches that results in a tie. A player T is called champion
if for all the other players S, (i) either T beats S, or (ii) there exists
another player R such that T beats R and R beats S.

(a) Is it possible to have Sagnik as the unique champion?


(b) Suppose Jayanta wins only a single match. Is it possible that
Jayanta becomes one of the champions of the tournament?
(c) Show that it is possible that both Sangita and Shital becomes
champion.
(d) Show that it is impossible to have Sangita and Shital as the only
champions. [2+3+3+7=15]

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