Let be a subset with four elements chosen from . Michael notes that there is a way to label the vertices of a square with elements from S such that no two vertices have the same label, and the labels adjacent to any side of the square differ by at least 4 . How many possibilities are there for the subset S$ ?
Solution
Let the four numbers be around the square. Assume without loss of generality that is the largest number, so that and . Note that cannot be simultaneously smaller than one of and larger than the other because, e.g. if , then and . Hence is either smaller than and or larger than and . Case 1: is smaller than and . Then we have , but when , we have , so we need , giving the only set . Case 2: is larger than and . Since and are both at most , the range of possible values for is . When , there are choices for respectively and bdbd does not matter). So there are 1 10+2 6+3 3+4 1=351+35=36$ possible sets in total.
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