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Combinatorics Difficulty 7.0 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it United States

Let SS be a set containing n2+n1n^2 + n - 1 elements, for some positive integer nn. Suppose that the nn-element subsets of SS are partitioned into two classes. Prove that there are at least nn pairwise disjoint sets in the same class.

Solution

In order to apply induction, we generalize the result to be proved so that it reads as follows:

Proposition. If the nn-element subsets of a set SS with (n+1)m1(n+1)m-1 elements are partitioned into two classes, then there are at least mm pairwise disjoint sets in the same class.

Proof. Fix nn and proceed by induction on mm. The case of m=1m=1 is trivial. Assume m>1m>1 and that the proposition is true for m1m-1. Let P\mathcal{P} be the partition of the nn-element subsets into two classes. If all the nn-element subsets belong to the same class, the result is obvious. Otherwise select two nn-element subsets AA and BB from different classes so that their intersection has maximal size. It is easy to see that AB=n1|A \cap B| = n-1. (If AB=k<n1|A \cap B| = k < n-1, then build CC from BB by replacing some element not in ABA \cap B with an element of AA not already in BB. Then AC=k+1|A \cap C| = k+1 and BC=n1|B \cap C| = n-1 and either AA and CC or BB and CC are in different classes.) Removing ABA \cup B from SS, there are (n+1)(m1)1(n+1)(m-1)-1 elements left. On this set the partition induced by P\mathcal{P} has, by the inductive hypothesis, m1m-1 pairwise disjoint sets in the same class. Adding either AA or BB as appropriate gives mm pairwise disjoint sets in the same class. \square

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