CS201 : Discrete Mathematics

Semester II, 2010-11, CSE, IIT Kanpur

Assignment - 1 (due on 28th January, 10 AM)

Note : Give complete details of the analysis of your solution. Be very rigorous in providing any
mathematical detail in support of your arguments. Also mention any Lemma/Theorem you use. No
marks will be awarded for a counting problem if you just write the final numeric answer without any
suitable arguments and analysis.

1. (a) Each of the given 9 lines cuts a given square into two quadrilaterals whose areas are in pro-
portion 2:3. Prove that at least three of these lines pass through the same point. (Note that
each of the quadrilateral must have exactly four sides. In other words, a triangle is not a
quadrilateral. Make use of this fact/clarification carefully.)
(b) Suppose f (x) is a polynomial with integral coefficients. If f (x) = 2 for three different integers
a, b, and c, prove that, for no integer, f (x) can be equal to 3.

2. A zig-zag line can be seen as a pair of parellel half-lines joined by a straight line segment (the
segment actually joins the tips of the two half-lines). Whats is the maximum number of regions
which can be generated using n zig-zag lines in a plane ?

3. Recall the principle of inclusions and exclusion which we proved in the class. This principle can also
be stated compactly as follows. Let S be a set of elements and let there be a set P of k properties.
It is given that that each element of S satisfies zero or more properties out of P . For any subset
c P , let Sc is the set of all those elements in S which satisfy at least all the properties of subset
c. Then the number of elements of S satisfying at least one property is equal to

Xk X
(1)i+1 |Sc |
i=1 cP and |c|=i

(a) Proceeding along similar lines, find an expression for the number of elements from S satisfying
exactly t properties for any given t k. The final expression should have terms involving
binomial coefficients and Sc s only. I am not writing the expression right here so that the
group of highly motivated and creative students among you may ponder over it and perhaps
come up with the expression on their own.
The exact expression posted after a week after the announcement of assignment
1 is the following
k 
X X i
(1)it |Sc |
t
i=t cP and |c|=i

Note. It is highly recommended that the student first fully understands the principle of
inclusion & exclusion and its proof, and then only attempts solving this problem.
(b) Use the above generalization to solve the following problem.
In how many ways can we distribute m different balls among n different bins so that exactly
t bins are empty ?
4. How many permutations of {1, . . . , n} are there such that the following assertion holds for each
i > 1. If x is the element present at location i, then either x 1 or x + 1 is present at some location
j<i?

5. Recall that stack is a data structure which permits LIFO (last in first out) operations. Suppose
we receive as input a sequence of n distinct elements: a1 , ..., an . Each element of the sequence must
be pushed and popped into the stack exactly once (though at different moments of time). Elements
are printed in the order they are popped. The output will be, therefore, some permutation of
the input sequence. So a stack can be used to generate a subset of permutations. However, some
permutations can never be generated. For example, the permutation a3 , a1 , a2 can not be generated
using a stack. How many different permutations can you generate using a single stack ?

(the following exercise is just for fun, and its solution need not be submitted)

Two arbitrary squares of different colors have been removed from a chessboard. Is it possible to
cover the remaining portion of the board with domino so that each domino piece covers exactly two
squares?