Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /9 of 520

Combinatorics Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Find the answer

7・ 1 There are 9 chairs around a round table, and 4 people sit down randomly. What is the probability that no two people are sitting next to each other?

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

[Solution] The first person can sit in any position, and the remaining three people have a total of 8768 \cdot 7 \cdot 6 ways to sit in a circle.

On the other hand, if no two people are to sit next to each other, the first person can sit in any position, and the remaining 3 people can sit in alternating seats in 6 ways, and the extra chair can be in 4 positions, so the total number of ways is 46=244 \cdot 6=24.

Therefore, the required probability is 24876=114\frac{24}{8 \cdot 7 \cdot 6}=\frac{1}{14}.

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: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.