Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
For any subset S{1,2,,15}S \subseteq \{1,2, \ldots, 15\}, a number nn is called an "anchor" for SS if nn and n+Sn+|S| are both members of SS, where S|S| denotes the number of members of SS. Find the average number of anchors over all possible subsets S{1,2,,15}S \subseteq \{1,2, \ldots, 15\}.

Solution

Solution:
We first find the sum of the numbers of anchors of all subsets SS; this is equivalent to finding, for each nn, the number of sets for which nn is an anchor, and then summing over all nn. Suppose that nn is an anchor for SS, and SS has kk elements. Then n,n+kSk2n, n+k \in S \Rightarrow k \geq 2, and also n+k15n+k \leq 15, or k15nk \leq 15-n. The remaining k2k-2 elements of SS (other than nn and n+kn+k) may be freely chosen from the remaining 13 members of {1,2,,15}\{1,2, \ldots, 15\}, so we get (13k2)\binom{13}{k-2} possible sets SS. Summing over all allowed values of kk, we then have (130)+(131)+(132)++(1313n)\binom{13}{0}+\binom{13}{1}+\binom{13}{2}+\cdots+\binom{13}{13-n} sets with nn as an anchor. If we sum over all n=1,2,,13n=1,2, \ldots, 13 (since there are no possible values of kk when n>13n>13), we get a total of
13(130)+12(131)+11(132)++(1312) 13\binom{13}{0}+12\binom{13}{1}+11\binom{13}{2}+\cdots+\binom{13}{12}
If we call this quantity AA, then, by symmetry, 2A2A equals
13(130)+12(131)+11(132)++(1312)+((131)+2(132)++12(1312)+13(1313))=13213. \begin{aligned} & 13\binom{13}{0}+12\binom{13}{1}+11\binom{13}{2}+\cdots+\binom{13}{12} \\ & + \left(\binom{13}{1}+2\binom{13}{2}+\cdots+12\binom{13}{12}+13\binom{13}{13}\right) = 13 \cdot 2^{13}. \end{aligned}
So A=13212A=13 \cdot 2^{12} is the total number of anchors over all possible sets SS. Finally, to find the average number of anchors, we divide by the number of sets, which is 2152^{15}; thus, the answer is 13212/215=13/813 \cdot 2^{12} / 2^{15} = 13 / 8.

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