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ASSIGNMENT

1. Twenty five boys and twenty five girls sit around a table. Prove that it is always possible to find a
person both of whose neighbors are girls.

2. A spider has one sock and one shoe for each of its eight legs. In how many different orders can the
spider put on its socks and shoes, assuming that, on each leg, the sock must be put on before the
shoe?

3. Given 8 different natural numbers, none greater 15, show that at least three pairs of them have the
same positive difference (the pairs need not be disjoint as sets.)

4. Consider the equation 2x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 + x5 + x6 + x7 + x8 + x9 + x10 = 3. How many non – negative

integral solutions does it have?

5. A necklace contains 2016 pearls, each of which has one of the colours black, green or blue. In each
step we replace simultaneously each pearl with a new pearl, where the colour of the new pearl is
determined as follows: If the two original neighbors were of the same colour, the new pearl has their
colour. If the neighbors had two different colours, the new pearl has the third colour.
(a) Is there such a necklace that can be transformed with such steps to a necklace of blue pearls if
half of the pearls were black and half of the pearls were green at the start ?
(b) Is there such a necklace that can be transformed with such steps to a necklace of blue pearls if
thousands of the pearls were black at the start and the rest green ?
(c) Is it possible to transform a necklace that contains exactly two adjacent black pearls and 2014
blue pearls to a necklace that contains one green pearl and 2015 blue pearls?
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Solutions
1. Twenty five boys and twenty five girls sit around a table. Prove that it is always possible to find a
person both of whose neighbors are girls.
Sol. For the sake of contradiction we assume that there is a seating arrangement such that there is no one
sitting in between two girls. We call a block any group of girls (boys) sitting next to each other and
sandwiched by boys (girls) from both sides. By our assumption, each girl block has at most 2 girls
and there are at least 2 boys in the gap between two consecutive girl blocks. Hence there are at least
[25/2] = 13 girl blocks and at least 2  13 boys sitting in between the 13 gaps between girls blocks.
But we only have 25 boys, a contradiction. Therefore our assumption was wrong and it is always
possible to find someone sitting between two girls.

2. A spider has one sock and one shoe for each of its eight legs. In how many different orders can the
spider put on its socks and shoes, assuming that, on each leg, the sock must be put on before the
shoe?
Sol. Number the spider’s legs from 1 through 8, and let ak and bk denote the sock and shoe that will go on
leg k. A possible arrangement of the socks and shoes is a permutation of the sixteen symbols a1, b1,
….. a8, b8, in which ak precedes bk for 1  k  8. There are 16! Permutations of the sixteen symbols,
and a1 precedes b1 in exactly half of these, or 16!/2 permutations. Similarly, a2 precedes b2 in exactly
half of those, or 16!/22 permutations. Continuing we can conclude that ak precedes bk 1  k  8 in
exactly 16!/28 permutations.

3. Given 8 different natural numbers, none greater 15, show that at least three pairs of them have the
same positive difference (the pairs need not be disjoint as sets.)
Sol. In solving problem we encounter a seemingly insuperable obstacle. There are 14 possible differences
between the 8 given numbers (the values of the differences being 1 through 14). These are the 14
pigeon holes. But what are our pigeons? They must be the differences between pairs of the given
numbers. However, there are 28 pairs, and we can fit them in our 14 pigeon holes in such a way that
there are exactly two “pigeons” in each hole (and therefore no hole containing three). Here we must
use an additional consideration. We cannot put more than one pigeon in the pigeon hole of difference
14. This means that the remaining 13 pigeon holes contain at least 27 pigeons, and the General
pigeon Hole Principle gives our result.

4. Consider the equation 2x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 + x5 + x6 + x7 + x8 + x9 + x10 = 3. How many non – negative

integral solutions does it have?
Sol. Clearly, x1 = 0 or 1. If x1 = 0, then
x2 + x3 + … + x10 = 3.
 11
There are   sequences of eight 1’s and three 0’s. For each such sequence, interpret the 1’s as
3
dividers which partition the 0’s into nine ordered groups. These corresponds to a solution (x 2, x3, …,
x10). Similarly, if x1 = 1, then
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x2 + x3 + … + x10 = 1
and we consider sequences of eight 1’s and one 0. Hence the total number of solutions is
11  9 
  +   = 174
 3  1

5. A necklace contains 2016 pearls, each of which has one of the colours black, green or blue. In each
step we replace simultaneously each pearl with a new pearl, where the colour of the new pearl is
determined as follows: If the two original neighbors were of the same colour, the new pearl has their
colour. If the neighbors had two different colours, the new pearl has the third colour.
(a) Is there such a necklace that can be transformed with such steps to a necklace of blue pearls if
half of the pearls were black and half of the pearls were green at the start ?
(b) Is there such a necklace that can be transformed with such steps to a necklace of blue pearls if
thousands of the pearls were black at the start and the rest green ?
(c) Is it possible to transform a necklace that contains exactly two adjacent black pearls and 2014
blue pearls to a necklace that contains one green pearl and 2015 blue pearls?
Sol. (a) Since 2016 is divisible by 4, we can alternatingly take two black and two green pearls. In the
first step, all pearls are already replaced by blue pearls.
(b) If we assign to each blue pearl the number 0, to each green pearl the number 1 and to each
black pearl the number 2, then it holds in each step that the new colour of a pearls modulo 3
is equal to the negative sum of its two original neighbors. The new total sum of all colours
modulo 3 therefore can be calculated by multiplying the old total sum of all colours with 2
and changing the sign. But modulo 3, a multiplication with – 2 is equivalent to a
multiplication with 1, therefore the total sum always remains the same modulo 3.
For a necklace with only blue pearls the total sum is 0. But for 1000 black and 1016 green
pearls it is 2000 + 1016  1 (mod 3). Therefore, there does not exist an arrangement of 1000
black and 1016 green pearls that can be transformed into a necklace with only blue pearls
using such steps.
(c) Using the same assignment of numbers modulo 3, in each step the sum of all colours in even
position becomes the sum of the colours in odd position, and vice versa. If these sums are A
and B in the beginning, then at the end we still have these same two sums modulo 3, maybe
with switched positions.
But in the beginning, we have sums 2 and 2 modulo 3, because both among the even and
among the odd positions there is exactly one black pearl with value 2, and otherwise only
blue pearls with value 0. However, at the end we are supposed to have sums 1 and 0 because
one of the two sums is determined only by blue pearls with value 0, and the other by exactly
one green pearl with value 1 and only blue pearls with value 0 otherwise. Therefore, it is not
possible.