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Combinatorics Difficulty 7.3 National olympiad, round 2 Find the answer

Let X1,X2,,X100X_1, X_2, \ldots, X_{100} be a sequence of mutually distinct nonempty subsets of a set SS . Any two sets XiX_i and Xi+1X_{i+1} are disjoint and their union is not the whole set SS , that is, XiXi+1=X_i\cap X_{i+1}=\emptyset and XiXi+1SX_i\cup X_{i+1}\neq S , for all i{1,,99}i\in\{1, \ldots, 99\} . Find the smallest possible number of elements in SS .

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

Solution

The answer is that S8|S| \ge 8 .
First, we provide a inductive construction for S={1,,8}S = \left\{ 1, \dots, 8 \right\} . Actually, for n4n \ge 4 we will provide a construction for S={1,,n}S = \left\{ 1, \dots, n \right\} which has 2n1+12^{n-1} + 1 elements in a line. (This is sufficient, since we then get 129129 for n=8n = 8 .) The idea is to start with the following construction for S=4|S| = 4 : 34123412314213.\begin{array}{ccccccccc} 34 & 1 & 23 & 4 & 12 & 3 & 14 & 2 & 13 \end{array}. Then inductively, we do the following procedure to move from nn to n+1n+1 : take the chain for nn elements, delete an element, and make two copies of the chain (which now has even length). Glue the two copies together, joined by \varnothing in between. Then place the element n+1n+1 in alternating positions starting with the first (in particular, this hits n+1n+1 ). For example, the first iteration of this construction gives: 345123541253145253415234512351425\begin{array}{ccccccccc} 345 & 1 & 235 & 4 & 125 & 3 & 145 & 2 & 5 \\ 34 & 15 & 23 & 45 & 12 & 35 & 14 & 25 & \end{array} Now let's check S8|S| \ge 8 is sufficient. Consider a chain on a set of size S=7|S| = 7 . (We need S7|S| \ge 7 else 2S<1002^{|S|} < 100 .) Observe that there are sets of size 4\ge 4 can only be neighbored by sets of size 2\le 2 , of which there are (71)+(72)=28\binom 71 + \binom 72 = 28 . So there are 30\le 30 sets of size 4\ge 4 . Also, there are (73)=35\binom 73 = 35 sets of size 33 . So the total number of sets in a chain can be at most 30+28+35=93<10030 + 28 + 35 = 93 < 100 .

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