Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.0 AIME, harder Find the answer

Compute a+b+c=12a6,b,c0a!b!c!(abc)!\sum_{\substack{a+b+c=12 \\ a \geq 6, b, c \geq 0}} \frac{a!}{b!c!(a-b-c)!} where the sum runs over all triples of nonnegative integers (a,b,c)(a, b, c) such that a+b+c=12a+b+c=12 and a6a \geq 6.

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

Solution

We tile a 1×121 \times 12 board with red 1×11 \times 1 pieces, blue 1×21 \times 2 pieces, and green 1×21 \times 2 pieces. Suppose we use aa total pieces, bb blue pieces, and cc green pieces. Then we must have a+b+c=12a+b+c=12, and the number of ways to order the pieces is (ab,c,abc)\binom{a}{b, c, a-b-c} Thus, the desired sum is the number of ways to do this. Let ana_{n} be the number of ways to do this on a 1×n1 \times n board. Then we have the recursion an=an1+2an2a_{n}=a_{n-1}+2 a_{n-2} by casework on the first piece: if it is 1×11 \times 1, we are left with a 1×n11 \times n-1 board, and otherwise we are left with a 1×n21 \times n-2 board. We also know a1=1a_{1}=1 and a2=3a_{2}=3, so the characteristic polynomial for this recursion is t2t2=0t^{2}-t-2=0, which has roots 2 and -1 . Thus, an=A(1)n+B2na_{n}=A \cdot(-1)^{n}+B \cdot 2^{n} Then plugging in n=1n=1 and n=2n=2 gives A=13A=-\frac{1}{3} and B=23B=\frac{2}{3}, so an=2n+1+(1)n3a_{n}=\frac{2^{n+1}+(-1)^{n}}{3} With n=12n=12, this evaluates to our answer of 2731 .

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