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Combinatorics Difficulty 6.5 National olympiad Find the answer

23. C3 (COL) Let n n be a positive integer. A sequence of n n positive integers (not necessarily distinct) is called full if it satisfies the following condition: For each positive integer k2 k \geq 2 , if the number k k appears in the sequence, then so does the number k1 k-1 , and moreover, the first occurrence of k1 k-1 comes before the last occurrence of k k . For each n n , how many full sequences are there?

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

Solution

23. We claim that there are nn! full sequences. To show this, we construct a bijection with the set of permutations of {1,2,,n}\{1,2, \ldots, n\}. Consider a full sequence (a1,a2,,an)\left(a_{1}, a_{2}, \ldots, a_{n}\right), and let mm be the greatest of the numbers a1,,ana_{1}, \ldots, a_{n}. Let Sk,1kmS_{k}, 1 \leq k \leq m, be the set of those indices ii for which ai=ka_{i}=k. Then S1,SmS_{1}, \ldots S_{m} are nonempty and form a partition of the set {1,2,,n}\{1,2, \ldots, n\}. Now we write down the elements of S1S_{1} in descending order, then the elements of S2S_{2} in descending order and so on. This maps the full sequence to a permutation of {1,2,,n}\{1,2, \ldots, n\}. Moreover, this map is reversible, since each permutation uniquely breaks apart into decreasing sequences S1,S2,,SmS_{1}^{\prime}, S_{2}^{\prime}, \ldots, S_{m}^{\prime}, so that maxSi>minSi1\max S_{i}^{\prime}>\min S_{i-1}^{\prime}. Therefore the full sequences are in bijection with the permutations of {1,2,,n}\{1,2, \ldots, n\}. Second solution. Let there be given a full sequence of length nn. Removing from it the first occurrence of the highest number, we obtain a full sequence of length n1n-1. On the other hand, each full sequence of length n1n-1 can be obtained from exactly nn full sequences of length nn. Therefore, if xnx_{n} is the number of full sequences of length nn, we deduce xn=nxn1x_{n}=n x_{n-1}.

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