Let be a set of five distinct integers and the set that contains all sums with and . The two smallest elements of are and , while the two largest elements of are and . Determine all possible sets .
Solution
Let be the elements of . The two smallest sums are . The two largest are . We then obtain
This allows us to express the elements of in terms of as follows:
For we need , i.e. . For we need or , i.e. . Therefore we only have the following three possibilities:
<table>
<thead>
<tr><th>a</th><th>10</th><th>11</th><th>12</th></tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><th>b = 25 - a</th><td>15</td><td>14</td><td>13</td></tr>
<tr><th>c = 31 - a</th><td>21</td><td>20</td><td>19</td></tr>
<tr><th>d = 45 - a</th><td>35</td><td>34</td><td>33</td></tr>
<tr><th>e = 26 + a</th><td>36</td><td>37</td><td>38</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
A straightforward check shows that these three possibilities indeed satisfy the given conditions:
<table>
<thead>
<tr><th>A</th><th>S</th></tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td>10, 15, 21, 35, 36</td><td>25, 31, 36, 45, 46, 50, 51, 56, 57, 71</td></tr>
<tr><td>11, 14, 20, 34, 37</td><td>25, 31, 34, 45, 48, 51, 54, 57, 71</td></tr>
<tr><td>12, 13, 19, 33, 38</td><td>25, 31, 32, 45, 46, 50, 51, 52, 57, 71</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
The set in the second case has only 9 elements because .