CombinatoricsDifficulty 4.0AIMEFind the answerPhilippines
Problem:
How many nonempty subsets of {1,2,…,10} have the property that the sum of its largest element and its smallest element is 11?
A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.
Solution
Solution:
If a is the smallest element of such a set, then 11−a is the largest element, and for the remaining elements we may choose any (or none) of the 10−2a elements a+1,a+2,…,(11−a)−1. Thus there are 210−2a such sets whose smallest element is a. We also require that 11−a≥a or a<6. We see that there are a=1∑5210−2a=a=0∑44a=4−145−1=31023=341 possible sets.
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.