Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 5 / 48 of 400 #648 of 1964

Problem 648

AIME late
Combinatorics Difficulty 5.2 Find the answer

1.83 Mark 10 points on a circle. How many different convex polygons can be constructed using some of these points as vertices? (Polygons are considered the same only if all their vertices coincide)

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

Official solution

[Solution] For positive integers k,3k10k, 3 \leqslant k \leqslant 10, every selection of kk points can form a convex polygon, and different sets of points form different polygons. There are C10kC_{10}^{k} different ways to choose kk points. Since
C103+C104+C105++C1010=210C100C101C102=968, \begin{aligned} & C_{10}^{3}+C_{10}^{4}+C_{10}^{5}+\cdots+C_{10}^{10} \\ = & 2^{10}-C_{10}^{0}-C_{10}^{1}-C_{10}^{2}=968, \end{aligned}

a total of 968 different convex polygons can be formed.

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