DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS, IIT DELHI

MTL180: Discrete Mathematical Structures, July-December, 2015

Tutorial Sheet-VI

1. Use Pigeonhole Principle/ Generalized Pigeonhole Principle to find solutions of the following problems.
(a) There are five people in a 6 mile by 8 mile rectangular forest, each carrying a walkietalkie with a range of 5 miles. Show that at least two of the five people can talk
with one another on their walkie-talkies.
(b) The lattice plane is the set of points in the Cartesian plane with integer coordinates.
Given any five points of the lattice plane, show that the midpoint of some pair of
points is a point in the lattice plane.
(c) An equilateral triangle has sides of length 6. Show that
if there are 10 points inside the triangle, then at least 2 of them are within 2
units of each other; and
if there are 9 points inside the triangle, there are at least 3 of them for which
each is at most 3 units from each of the other.
(d) During a month with 30 days, a baseball team plays at least one game a day, but
no more than 45 games. Show that there must be a period of some number of
consecutive days during which the team must play exactly 14 games.
2. How many two-digit numbers have distinct and nonzero digits?
3. How many odd numbers between 1000 and 999 have distinct digits?
4. In how many ways to make a basket of fruit from 6 oranges, 7 apples, and 8 bananas so
that the basket contains at least two apples and one banana?
5. In how many ways can four men and eight women be seated at a round table if there are
to be two women between consecutive men around the table?
6. The n members of the board of directors include the president and 2 vice presidents. Find
the number of ways of seating the board at a round table so that the vice presidents are
on either side of the president.
7. In how many ways can six men and six women be seated at a round table if the men and
women are to sit in alternate seats?
8. How many sets of three integers between 1 and 20 are possible if no two consec- utive
integers are to be in a set?
9. In how many ways can 12 indistinguishable apples and 1 orange be distributed among
three children in such a way that each child gets at least one piece of fruit?
10. Consider a string of 3n consecutive natural numbers. Show that any subset of n + 1 of
the numbers has two members that differ by at most 2.
11. Let A be any set of 51 numbers chosen from {1, 2, . . . , 100}. Show that two members of
A differe by 50.

12. Using inclusion-exclusion principle, answer the following.

(a) Find the number of integers between 1 and 250 inclusive that are divisible by any of
the integers 2, 3, 5, and 7.
(b) Find the number of integers between 1 and 1000 inclusive that are not divisible by
any of the integers 4, 5, or 6.
(c) Find the number of integers between 1 and 1000 inclusive that are neither perfect
squares nor perfect cubes.
(d) Determine the number of 10-combinations of the multiset M = {2a, 6b, 5c}.
(e) Find the number of integral solutions of the equation
x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 = 12
which satisfy the conditions
2 x1 6,

3 x2 1,

2 x3 6,

3 x4 8.

(f) Determine the number of permutations of J8 = {1, 2, . . . , 8} in which exactly four

integers are in their natural position.
(g) Find the number of permutations of the digits 1 through 9 in which
none of the blocks 23, 45, and 678 appears.
none of the blocks 34, 45, and 738 appears.
13. Consider the set of words of length n generated from the alphabet {0, 1, 2}.
(a) Show that the number of words in each of which the digit 0 appears an even number
of times is (3n + 1)/2.
(b) Prove the identity
 
 
 
n nq 3n + 1
n n2
n n
2
=
2
++
2 +
,
q
2
0
2
where q = n when n is even, and q = n 1 when n is odd.
14. There are n married couples. How many of the 2n people must be selected in order to
guarantee that one has selected a married couple.
15. Show that if 6 integers are chosen from the set J10 , then there are always two whose sum
is odd.
16. Show that if more than half of the subsets of Jn are selected, then some two of the selected
subsets have the propery that one is a subset of the other.
17. There are 15 married couples in a party. Find the number of ways of choosing a woman
and a man from the party such that the two are (a) married to each other (b) not married
to each other.
18. A computer password consists of a letter of the alphabel followed by 3 or 4 digits. Find
(a) the total number of passwords that can be created, and (b) the number of passwords
in which no digit repeats.
19. If a set X has 2n + 1 elements, find the number of subsets of X with at most n elements.
2

20. Determine the number of 12-combinations of the multiset

S = {4.a, 3.b, 4.c, 5.d}.
21. Determine the number of 10-combinations of the multiset
s = {.a, 4.b, 5.c, 7.d}.
22. Determine the number of solutions of the equation x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 + x5 = 14 in positive
integers x1 , x2 , x3 , x4 and x5 not exceeding 5.
23. Determine the number of permutations of {1, 2, . . . , 8} in which no even integer is in its
natural position.
24. How many words can be formed with permutations of all of the letters in
P ANAMABANANANAMAN?
25. How many words can be formed using all of the letters of the word combinations if
(a) there are no restrictions?
(b) the three-letter sequence bat must appear in the word?
(c) the two-letter sequence cc does not appear?
26. Determine the number of permutations of {1, 2, . . . , 9} in which at least one odd integer
is in its natural position.
27. Determine a general formula for the number of permutations of the set {1, 2, . . . , n} in
which exactly k integers are in their natural positions.
28. Use combinatorial arguments to prove the following.
  

k
n+1
(a)
=
n
k1

 X

n 
k
k+1
=
(b)
r
n
r=0

(c)

k+1
n+1


k 
X
r+1
=
n
r=0