a.
It is well known that there are (k−1n+k−1) ways to divide n marbles into k boxes. In this case, the answer is (434).
b.
Let m be the number of colors, x1,x2,…,xm be the number of boxes containing marble with color 1,2,…,m respectively. We now count the number of tuples (A,B,C), where A,B are the boxes having marbles with the same color C.
On the one hand, since every two boxes have in common at most 3 colors, thus the number of pairs is at most 3(25)=30.
On the other hand, the number of pairs is S=∑i=1m(2xi). Since in each box, there are at most one marble in each color, we get that ∑i=1mxi=30. By the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, we have
S=21(i=1∑mxi2−i=1∑mxi)≥21(m302−30).
Hence,
m900−30≤60⇔m≥10.
c.
Consider the following table.
| Box | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|-----|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|----|
| 1 | × | × | × | × | × | × | | | | |
| 2 | × | × | × | | | | × | | × | × |
| 3 | × | | | × | × | | | × | × | × |
| 4 | | × | | × | | × | × | × | | × |
| 5 | | | × | | × | × | × | × | × | |
It is a direct checking that the table satisfies the requirements. ☐