Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it Saudi Arabia

How many ways are there to color the vertices of a square with nn colors 1,2,,n1, 2, \ldots, n. (The colorings must be different so that we can't get one from the other by a rotation.)

Solution

Consider the cases:
1. Use 1 color: (n1)=n\binom{n}{1} = n,

2. Use 2 colors: 4×(n2)=2n(n1)4 \times \binom{n}{2} = 2n(n-1),

3. Use 3 colors: 9×(n3)=3n(n1)(n2)29 \times \binom{n}{3} = 3 \frac{n(n-1)(n-2)}{2},

4. Use 4 colors: 6×(n4)=n(n1)(n2)(n3)46 \times \binom{n}{4} = \frac{n(n-1)(n-2)(n-3)}{4}

The sum up will give:
n4+n2+2n4 \frac{n^{4} + n^{2} + 2n}{4}

Remark. We can rotate the coloring with respect to the angles 0,2π4,22π4,32π40, \frac{2\pi}{4}, 2\frac{2\pi}{4}, 3\frac{2\pi}{4}. We get 4×4 \times (the number SS of the rotationally distinct colorings). The arbitrary rotation of the colorings with only 1 color gives the same coloring, thus we have to add 3×(n1)3 \times \binom{n}{1} and similarly 2×(n2)2 \times \binom{n}{2}. Thus, we get
4×S=n4+3×(n1)+2×(n2)=n4+n2+2nS=n4+n2+2n4. 4 \times S = n^{4} + 3 \times \binom{n}{1} + 2 \times \binom{n}{2} = n^{4} + n^{2} + 2n \Rightarrow S = \frac{n^{4} + n^{2} + 2n}{4}.

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