Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /11 of 16

Combinatorics Difficulty 7.1 National olympiad, round 2 Prove it Argentina

Let N(a,b)N(a, b) be the number of ways to cover an a×ba \times b board using domino tiles. Additionally, let N(a,2b+1)N^*(a, 2b + 1) be the number of ways to cover an a×(2b+1)a \times (2b+1) board using domino tiles, without having vertical dominoes in the central column. Prove that N(2m,2n+1)=2mN(2m,n)N(2m,n1)N^*(2m, 2n + 1) = 2^m N(2m, n)N(2m, n - 1).

Solution

Suppose the board is colored like a chessboard. First let's establish a bit of notation. A cycle is a sequence of cells c1,,ckc_1, \dots, c_k such that for all ii we have that cic_i and ci+1c_{i+1} share one side (where ck+1=c1c_{k+1} = c_1). There are two possible covers of a cycle by dominoes, one that joins each black square to the next square and one that joins each black square to the previous square. Let's say that the tiles of the first cover are inverse to those of the second one.

Lemma. Given a covering TT of a 2m×(2n+1)2m \times (2n+1) board, each square in the (n+1)st(n+1)^{\text{st}} column is contained in a single symmetrical cycle with respect to it and covered by the pieces of TT in one of the two ways described above.

Proof. Consider the cover symmetric to TT with respect to column n+1n+1 and imagine the two covers overlapping, one on top of the other. Each square on the board is covered by two tiles so that the entire board is divided into several cycles. Since everything is symmetric about column n+1n+1, particularly if a cycle is formed by the overlapping, its symmetric too, whereby the cycles that contain cells in column n+1n+1 must coincide with their symmetric ones. In other words, they must be symmetrical. \square

Let's take a cell in column n+1n+1 and look at the cycle whose existence is guaranteed by the above lemma. The cycle must be symmetrical with respect to column n+1n+1 from which it follows that it must intersect it in exactly two cells, furthermore, these must be of different colors. Otherwise, the cycle would encircle an odd number of cells, which is impossible (since these can be covered by dominoes).

Let us call special squares of a covering TT those black squares of the column n+1n+1 that share a domino with a square of the column. It follows from the above that the cycles corresponding to special squares are all disjoint.

Now, given a covering TT, we are going to replace it by another TT^* as follows: for each special square of TT let's take the cycle guaranteed by the lemma and let's change the TT tiles that cover it for their inverses. Since the cycles in question are all disjoint, then they do not interfere with each other and the covering TT^* is well defined, which we will call the normal form of TT.

The covering TT^* cannot have horizontal pieces between a white square of the nthn^{\text{th}} column and a black one of the (n+1)st(n+1)^{\text{st}} (because when we went from TT to TT^*, what we did was turning over all those TT pieces). But then you can't have any horizontal dominoes between a black square on the nthn^{\text{th}} column and a white one on the (n+1)st(n+1)^{\text{st}} column, as this would unbalance the number of white and black squares on the left side of the board. In conclusion, all the squares of the central column must be covered by a TT^* domino tile that joins it to a square in the (n+2)nd(n+2)^{\text{nd}} column.

We have then proved that the normal form TT^* of TT breaks into a 2m×n2m \times n board cover, 2m2m horizontal tiles covering the n+1n+1 and n+2n+2 columns and a 2m×(n1)2m \times (n-1) board cover. It follows from the above that there are N(2m,n)N(2m,n1)N(2m, n)N(2m, n-1) possible normal forms.

How to recover TT from its normal TT^* form? To do this, it is enough to consider the cycles of TT^* that contain the special squares of TT that guarantees the lemma and "invert them". That is, we must know not only TT^* but also the subset of special cells of TT. There are mm black cells in the middle column, giving 2m2^m possible sets of special cells. That is, each normal form TT^* comes from two possible coverages. In short, with all of the above it is obtained that N(2m,2n+1)=2mN(2m,n)N(2m,n1)N^*(2m, 2n+1) = 2^m N(2m, n)N(2m, n-1) as we wanted to show.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.