Example 9 Let , for any 15 subsets of , if the union of any 7 of them contains at least elements, then among these 15 subsets, there must exist 3 subsets whose intersection is non-empty, find the minimum value of . (2006 China Mathematical Olympiad Problem)
Solution
Solve .
First, prove that meets the conditions. Use proof by contradiction: Assume there exist 15 subsets of such that the union of any 7 of them contains at least 41 elements, and the intersection of any 3 of them is empty. Then each element belongs to at most 2 subsets. Without loss of generality, assume each element belongs to exactly 2 subsets (otherwise, add some elements to some subsets, and the conditions still hold). By the pigeonhole principle, there must be a subset, say , containing at least elements. Let the other 14 subsets be , .
Consider any 7 subsets that do not include , each corresponding to 41 elements in . All 7-subset groups that do not include together correspond to at least elements.
On the other hand, for an element , if , then 2 of contain , so is counted times; if , then 1 of contains , so is counted times. Thus, , which simplifies to . Simplifying further, we get , or , which is a contradiction.
Next, prove that using proof by contradiction.
Assume , and let . Define and . Clearly, , for , , and for . Additionally, by the Chinese Remainder Theorem, for and . Thus, for any 3 subsets, there must be 2 that are both or both , and their intersection is empty. For any 7 subsets, let there be (where ) of them be and be . By the principle of inclusion-exclusion, the number of elements in the union of these 7 subsets is (since ) . Therefore, the union of any 7 subsets contains at least 40 elements, but the intersection of any 3 subsets is empty, so .
In conclusion, the minimum value of is 41.