CombinatoricsDifficulty 5.7AIME, harderProve itUnited States
Problem: For a string of P 's and Q 's, the value is defined to be the product of the positions of the P 's. For example, the string PPQPQQ has value 1⋅2⋅4=8.
Also, a string is called antipalindromic if writing it backwards, then turning all the P 's into Q 's and vice versa, produces the original string. For example, PPQPQQ is antipalindromic.
There are 21002 antipalindromic strings of length 2004. Find the sum of the reciprocals of their values.
Solution
Solution: 20051002/2004 ! Consider the product (11+20041)(21+20031)(31+20021)⋯(10021+10031). This product expands to 21002 terms, and each term gives the reciprocal of the value of a corresponding antipalindromic string of P 's and Q 's as follows: if we choose the term 1/n for the nth factor, then our string has a P in position n and Q in position 2005−n; if we choose the term 1/(2005−n), then we get a Q in position n and P in position 2005−n. Conversely, each antipalindromic string has its value represented by exactly one of our 21002 terms. So the value of the product is the number we are looking for. But when we simplify this product, the nth factor becomes 1/n+1/(2005−n)=2005/n(2005−n). Multiplying these together, we get 1002 factors of 2005 in the numerator and each integer from 1 to 2004 exactly once in the denominator, for a total of 20051002 / 2004!.
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