CombinatoricsDifficulty 7.6National Olympiad, round 2Prove itUnited States
Let S={1,…,100}, and for every positive integer n define Tn={(a1,…,an)∈Sn∣a1+⋯+an≡0(mod100)}. Determine which n have the following property: if we color any 75 elements of S red, then at least half of the n-tuples in Tn have an even number of coordinates with red elements.
Solution
We claim this holds exactly for n even. First solution by generating functions Define R(x)=s red∑xs,B(x)=s blue∑xs. (Here “blue” means “not-red”, as always.) Then, the number of tuples in Tn with exactly k red coordinates is exactly equal to (kn)⋅1001ω∑R(ω)kB(ω)n−k where the sum is over all primitive 100th roots of unity. So, we conclude the number of tuples in Tn with an even (resp odd) number of red elements is exactly XY⟹X−Y=1001ω∑k even∑(kn)R(ω)kB(ω)n−k=1001ω∑k odd∑(kn)R(ω)kB(ω)n−k=1001ω∑(B(ω)−R(ω))n=1001(B(1)−R(1))n+ω=1∑(2B(ω))n=1001[(B(1)−R(1))n−(2B(1))n+2nω∑B(ω)n]=1001[(B(1)−R(1))n−(2B(1))n]+2nZ=1001[(−50)n−50n]+2nZ. where Z=def1001ω∑B(ω)n≥0 counts the number of tuples in Tn which are all blue. Here we have used the fact that B(ω)+R(ω)=0 for ω=1.
We wish to show X−Y≥0 holds for n even, but may fail when n is odd. This follows from two remarks: * If n is even, then X−Y=2nZ≥0. * If n is odd, then if we choose the coloring for which s is red if and only if s=2(mod4); we thus get Z=0. Then X−Y=−1002⋅50n<0.
Second solution by strengthened induction and random coloring We again prove that n even work. Let us define Tn(a)={(a1,…,an)∈Sn∣a1+⋯+an≡a(mod100)}. Also, call an n-tuple good if it has an even number of red elements. We claim that Tn(a) also has at least 50% good tuples, by induction. This follows by induction on n≥2. Indeed, the base case n=2 can be checked by hand, since T2(a)={(x,a−x)∣x∈S}. With the stronger claim, one can check the case n=2 manually and proceed by induction to go from n−2 to n, noting that Tn(a)=b+c=a⨆Tn−2(b)⊕T2(c) where ⊕ denotes concatenation of tuples, applied set-wise. The concatenation of an (n−2)-tuple and 2-tuple is good if and only if the both or neither are good. Thus for each b and c, if the proportion of Tn−2(b) which is good is p≥21 and the proportion of T2(c) which is good is q≥21, then the proportion of Tn−2(b)⊕T2(c) which is good is
pq+(1−p)(1−q)≥21, as desired. Since each term in the union has at least half the tuples good, all of Tn(a) has at least half the tuples good, as desired. It remains to fail all odd n. We proceed by a suggestion of Yang Liu and Ankan Bhattacharya by showing that if we pick the 75 elements randomly, then any particular tuple in Sn has strictly less than 50% chance of being good. This will imply (by linearity of expectation) that Tn (or indeed any subset of Sn) will, for some coloring, have less than half good tuples. Let (a1,…,an) be such an n-tuple. If any element appears in the tuple more than once, keep discarding pairs of that element until there are zero or one; this has no effect on the good-ness of the tuple. If we do this, we obtain an m-tuple (b1,…,bm) with no duplicated elements where m≡n≡1(mod2). Now, the probability that any element is red is 43, so the probability of being good is k even∑m(km)(43)k(−41)m−k=21[(43+41)m−(43−41)m]=21[1−(21)m]<21.
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