UHS Math Club 2017-2018

Combinatorics Handout #6 Answers and Solutions

Walker Kroubalkian
February 27, 2017

1 Answers
400
1.
9
2. 6435
3. 30
4. 3744
5. 56
6. 44
10201
7.
100
8. 420
9. 6
3
10.
5
11. 1001
12. 34
231
13.
1024
14. 21
15. 52

2 Solutions

1. On 5 × 5 grid of lattice points, every point is uniformly randomly colored blue, red, or green.
Find the expected number of monochromatic triangles T with vertices chosen from the lattice grid,
such that some two sides of T are parallel to the axis.
Solution: The probability that an arbitrary triangle will be monochromatic is 31 · 13 = 19 as the
second and third colors of the vertices must match the color of the first vertex. The total number
of triangles with two sides parallel to the axes is 25 · 4 · 4 = 400 as there are 25 ways to choose
which vertex will have a right angle, 4 ways to choose which vertex will be in the same row as the
first, and 4 ways to choose which vertex will be in the same column as the first. Because each point
appears in the same number of these triangles, the expected number of monochromatic triangles is
400
400 · 19 = .
9

1
UHS Math Club 2017-2018

2. What is the number of nondecreasing positive integer sequences of length 7 whose last term is
at most 9?
Solution: Let the number of nondecreasing positive integer sequences of length n and first element
k with a last term of at most 9 be Fn,k . It follows that
9
X
Fn,k = Fn−1,i
i=k

where Fn,9 = 1 for all n and F1,k = 1 for all k. Using these facts, we can generate the following
grid:

n/k 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
2 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
3 45 36 28 21 15 10 6 3 1
4 165 120 84 56 35 20 10 4 1
5 495 330 210 126 70 35 15 5 1
6 1287 792 462 252 126 56 21 6 1
7 3003 1716 924 462 210 84 28 7 1
 
15
Adding up the elements in the 7th row, we get an answer of = 6435 .
7
3. How many ways can we pick four 3-element subsets of {1, 2, ..., 6} so that each pair of subsets
share exactly one element?
Solution: Let the first subset be A, B, C. Then without loss of generality, let the second subset
be A, D, E. Then let the third subset be B, D, F . It follows that the fourth subset is C, E, F . If
we consider some arbitrary element A, then there are 5 ways to choose the element F which does
not appear in the same subset as A and 3 ways to choose which pairs of elements appear in the
same subset as A. In addition, there are 2 ways to choose the pairs of elements that are in the
same subset as F . Following all of these choices, there is exactly one set of four subsets with these
properties. It follows that our answer is 5 · 3 · 2 · 1 = 30 .
4. How many five-card hands from a standard deck of 52 cards are full houses? A full house
consists of 3 cards of one rank and 2 cards of another rank.
Solution: There are 13  ways
 to choose which rank has 3 cards and 12 ways to choose   which rank
4 4
has 2 cards. There are = 4 ways to choose which 3 cards are of the first rank and = 6 ways
3 2
to choose which 6 cards are of the second rank. It follows that our answer is 13 · 12 · 4 · 6 = 3744 .
5. Three 3-legged (distinguishable) Stanfurdians take off their socks and trade them with each
other. How many ways is this possible if everyone ends up with exactly 3 socks and nobody gets
any of their own socks? All socks originating from the Stanfurdians are distinguishable from each
other. All Stanfurdian feet are indistinguishable from other feet of the same Stanfurdian.
Solution: Label the socks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 where the first three are from the first Stanfurdian
and the next three are from the second Stanfurdian. Then we want to regroup these numbers such
that no sock is in its original group of 3. First consider if the three Stanfurdians simply cycle each
of their three socks. In other words, if the Stanfurdians are A, B, and C, then consider when A

2
UHS Math Club 2017-2018

gives his socks to B, B gives his socks to C, and C gives his socks to A. Clearly there are 2 ways in
which this is possible. The only other case is when A gives 2 of his socks to B and the other sock
to C, B gives 2 of his socks to C and the other sock to A, and C gives 2 of his socks to A and the
other sock to B. In this case, there are 2 ways to choose which Stanfurdian that A gives 2 socks, 3
ways to choose which pair of socks that A gives, 3 ways to choose which pair of socks that B gives,
and 3 ways to choose which pair of socks that C gives. It follows that there are 2 · 3 · 3 · 3 = 54
possibilities in this case. It follows that our answer is 2 + 54 = 56 .
6. How many subsets (including the empty-set) of {1, 2..., 6} do not have three consecutive integers?
Solution: In total there are 26 = 64 subsets of this set. 26−3 = 8 of them will have 1, 2, and 3.
26−4 = 4 of them will have 2, 3, and 4 but not 1. 26−5 · 21 = 4 of them will have 3, 4, and 5 but
not 2. 26−6 · 22 = 4 of them will have 4, 5, and 6 but not 3. It follows that in total, there are
8 + 4 + 4 + 4 = 20 subsets with three consecutive integers, and it follows that there are a total of
64 − 20 = 44 subsets with this property.
7. Consider an urb containing 51 white and 50 black balls. Every turn, we randomly pick a ball,
record the color of the ball, and then we put the ball back into the urn. We stop picking when we
have recorded n black balls, where n is an integer randomly chosen from {1, 2, ..., 100} What is the
expected number of turns?
50 50
Solution: Notice that the probability that any given ball is black is 50+51 = 101 . It follows that
50x
the expected number of black balls after x choices is 101 . It follows that the expected number of
n
turns before n black balls are drawn is 50 = 101n
50 . The expected value of n is
1+100
2 = 1012 , so our
101
101 101 10201
answer is 50 · 2 = .
100
8. There are 2000 math students and 4000 CS students at Berkeley. If 5580 students are either
math students or CS students, then how many of them are studying both math and CS?
Solution: Notice that by adding the 2000 math students to the 4000 CS students, we will count
6000 students, but we will have counted each of the students in both math and CS exactly twice.
It follows that the number of students who are studying both math and CS is 6000 − 5580 = 420 .
9. I have 18 socks in my drawer, 6 colored red, 8 colored blue and 4 colored green. If I close my
eyes and grab a bunch of socks, how many socks must I grab to guarantee there will be two pairs
of matching socks?
Solution: Notice that to maximize the number of socks we can take before we encounter two pairs
of matching socks, we should choose 3 of one color of sock so that we only get 1 pair of that color,
and then we should take 1 sock of each of the other colors. Once we choose our 6th sock, we must
have 2 pairs of socks regardless of the color of that sock, so our answer is 6 .
10. Alice, Bob, and four other people sit themselves around a circular table. What is the probability
that Alice does not sit to the left or right of Bob?
Solution: Clearly there are 3 seats which are not next to Bob and 5 for Alice to choose from. It
3
follows that our answer is .
5
11. There are 20 indistinguishable balls to be placed into bins A, B, C, D, and E. Each bin must
have at least 2 balls inside of it. How many ways can the balls be placed into the bins, if each ball
must be placed in a bin?

3
UHS Math Club 2017-2018

Solution: Notice that once 2 balls are placed in each bin, we wish to divide the remaining 10 balls
among 5 bins such that there
 is a nonnegative number of balls in each bin. By Stars and Bars, it
10 + 4
follows that our answer is = 1001 .
4
12. A gorgeous sequence is a sequence of 1’s and 0’s such that there are no consecutive 1’s. For
instance, the set of all gorgeous sequences of length 3 is {[1, 0, 0], [1, 0, 1], [0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 1], [0, 0, 0]}.
Determine the number of gorgeous sequences of length 7.
Solution: Let Fn be the number of gorgeous sequences of length n. Notice that if the nth digit in
such a sequence were 1, then by definition the n − 1th digit would have to be a 0 and then the first
n − 2 digits would have to be any arbitrary gorgeous sequence. Similarly, if the nth digit in such a
sequence were 0, then the first n − 1 digits would have to be any arbitrary gorgeous sequence. It
follows that Fn = Fn−1 + Fn−2 . By brute force we can observe that F1 = 2 and F2 = 3. It follows
that F3 = 5, F4 = 8, F5 = 13, F6 = 21, and finally F7 = 34 .
13. A coin is flipped 12 times. What is the probability that the total number of heads equals the
total number of tails? Express your answer as a common fraction in lowest terms.
Solution: If the total number of heads is equal to the total number of tails, then it follows that
we must
  have exactly 6 heads and exactly 6 tails. The total number of ways to achieve this is
12
= 924. The total number of possibilities when a coin is flipped 12 times is 212 = 4096. It
6
924 231
follows that our answer is 4096 = .
1024
14. Debbie has six Pusheens: 2 pink ones, 2 gray ones, and 2 blue ones, where Pusheens of the
same color are indistinguishable. She sells two Pusheens each to Alice, Bob, and Eve. How many
ways are there for her to do so?
Solution: There are 3 cases. The first case is that each person takes 2 Pusheens of the same
color. Clearly in this case there are 3! = 6 possibilities. The second case is that one person takes 2
Pusheens of the same color and the other two people take 1 Pusheen of 1 color and 1 Pusheen of
the other color. In this case there are 3 ways to choose who takes 2 Pusheens of the same color and
3 ways to choose which color they take from. It follows that there are 32 = 9 possibilities in this
case. The third case is that each person takes 1 Pusheen of one color and 1 Pusheen of another
color. There are 3 ways to choose which color Alice does not take and then there are 2 ways to
choose which color Bob does not take. It follows that there are 3 · 2 = 6 possibilities in this case.
It follows that our answer is 6 + 9 + 6 = 21 .
15. A prim number is a number that is prime if its last digit is removed. A rime number is a
number that is prime if its first digit is removed. Determine how many numbers between 100 and
999 inclusive are both prim and rime numbers.
Solution: Notice that if our number is of the form abc, we must have that b is odd because the
number ab is prime and greater than 10 and we must have that c is odd because the number bc is
prime and greater than 10. Therefore, bc is a 2-digit prime number with two odd digits which are
both not equal to 5. It follows that the possible values of bc are {11, 13, 17, 19, 31, 37, 71, 73, 79, 97}.
Now we can notice that there are 5 2-digit prime numbers that end in 1, 6 2-digit prime numbers
that end in 3, 5 2-digit prime numbers that end in 7, and 5 2-digit prime numbers that end in 9.
It follows that our answer is 4 · 5 + 2 · 6 + 3 · 5 + 1 · 5 = 52 .

4
UHS Math Club 2017-2018

3 Sources

1. 2016 Berkeley Math Tournament Spring Individual Problem 9

2. 2016 Berkeley Math Tournament Spring Individual Problem 12
3. 2016 Berkeley Math Tournament Spring Individual Problem 15
4. 2016 Berkeley Math Tournament Spring Discrete Problem 3
5. 2016 Berkeley Math Tournament Spring Discrete Problem 4
6. 2016 Berkeley Math Tournament Spring Team Problem 9
7. 2016 Berkeley Math Tournament Spring Team Problem 13
8. 2017 Berkeley Math Tournament Fall Individual Problem 3
9. 2017 Berkeley Math Tournament Fall Individual Problem 8
10. 2017 Berkeley Math Tournament Fall Individual Problem 13
11. 2017 Berkeley Math Tournament Fall Individual Problem 18
12. 2017 Berkeley Math Tournament Fall Individual Problem 20
13. 2017 Berkeley Math Tournament Fall Team Problem 5
14. 2017 Berkeley Math Tournament Fall Team Problem 8
15. 2017 Berkeley Math Tournament Fall Team Problem 12