Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /16 of 18

Combinatorics Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
Let kk be a positive integer. Prove that there exist POSITIVE integers a0,,aka_{0}, \ldots, a_{k} such that for all integers x0x \geq 0,
xk=a0(xk)+a1(x+1k)++ak1(x+k1k). x^{k}=a_{0}\left(\begin{array}{l} x \\ k \end{array}\right)+a_{1}\left(\begin{array}{c} x+1 \\ k \end{array}\right)+\cdots+a_{k-1}\left(\begin{array}{c} x+k-1 \\ k \end{array}\right) \text{.}

Solution

Solution:
Given kk and xx, let AA be the set of all sets of the form
{m1+1k,m2+2k,,mk+kk} \left\{m_{1}+\frac{1}{k}, m_{2}+\frac{2}{k}, \ldots, m_{k}+\frac{k}{k}\right\}
where the mim_{i} are integers, 1mix1 \leq m_{i} \leq x. Clearly, AA consists of xkx^{k} sets, each of which has kk distinct elements. Now we count the elements of AA in another way.

Arrange the elements of a member of AA in increasing order:
n1+p1k<n2+p2k<<nk+pkk n_{1}+\frac{p_{1}}{k}<n_{2}+\frac{p_{2}}{k}<\cdots<n_{k}+\frac{p_{k}}{k}
For each permutation p=(p1,,pk)p=\left(p_{1}, \ldots, p_{k}\right) of the numbers (1,,k)(1, \ldots, k), let ApAA_{p} \subseteq A be the subset consisting of sets whose sorted presentation (1) displays the given sequence pp of numerators. We claim that the size of ApA_{p} is a binomial coefficient (x+rpk)\left(\begin{array}{c}x+r_{p} \\ k\end{array}\right), where rpr_{p} depends on pp (hence on kk) but not on xx.

For n1,,nk(1nix)n_{1}, \ldots, n_{k}\left(1 \leq n_{i} \leq x\right) to define an element of ApA_{p}, it is necessary and sufficient that the inequalities (1) hold. So we must have
1n1n2nkx 1 \leq n_{1} \leq n_{2} \leq \cdots \leq n_{k} \leq x
Moreover, the strict inequality ni<ni+1n_{i}<n_{i+1} is required whenever pi>pi+1p_{i}>p_{i+1}. To condense all these conditions, it is convenient to define nonnegative integers e1,e2,,eke_{1}, e_{2}, \ldots, e_{k} by
e1=0ei+1={ei+1 if pi<pi+1ei if pi>pi+1 \begin{aligned} e_{1} & =0 \\ e_{i+1} & = \begin{cases}e_{i}+1 & \text{ if } p_{i}<p_{i+1} \\ e_{i} & \text{ if } p_{i}>p_{i+1}\end{cases} \end{aligned}
Then the conditions may be written as
1n1+e1<n2+e2<<nk+ekx+ek. 1 \leq n_{1}+e_{1}<n_{2}+e_{2}<\cdots<n_{k}+e_{k} \leq x+e_{k} .
We observe that {(n1+e1,,nk+ek)}\left\{\left(n_{1}+e_{1}, \ldots, n_{k}+e_{k}\right)\right\} may be any kk-element subset of {1,2,,x+ek}\left\{1,2, \ldots, x+e_{k}\right\}, written in increasing order. So, writing rp=ekr_{p}=e_{k},
Ap=(x+rpk) \left|A_{p}\right|=\left(\begin{array}{c} x+r_{p} \\ k \end{array}\right)
Observe that 0rpk10 \leq r_{p} \leq k-1. Letting aia_{i} be the number of pp for which rp=ir_{p}=i, we obtain
xk=A=pAp=i=0k1ai(x+ik) x^{k}=|A|=\sum_{p}\left|A_{p}\right|=\sum_{i=0}^{k-1} a_{i}\left(\begin{array}{c} x+i \\ k \end{array}\right)
Here the aia_{i} are clearly nonnegative integers. To prove that they are positive, it suffices to exhibit, for each ii, a pp with rp=ir_{p}=i; the permutation (n,n1,,i+1,1,2,,i)(n, n-1, \ldots, i+1,1,2, \ldots, i) is readily seen to work.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.