Problem Set

October 21, 2013

1 Recurrence
1. Find the shortest sequence of moves that transfers a tower of n disks from the left most peg A (say) to the right most peg B (say), if direct moves between A and B are disallowed. (Each move must be to or from the middle peg.) 2. Solve the recurrence
Q0 = , Q1 = Qn = (1 + Qn1 /Qn2 )

3. Use repertoire method to solve the following:

g (1) = g (2n + j ) = 3g (n) + n + j for j = 0, 1 and n 1

4. What is the value of

k

[1 j k n], as a function of n and j ?

5. Solve following recurrence

T0 = 5 2Tn = nTn1 + 3 n!
nk 6. Evaluate the sums Sn = n , Tn = k=0 (1) perturation method, assuming that n 0. n nk k k=0 (1)

and Tn =

n nk 2 k k=0 (1)

by

7. Evaluate the sum

n k 2 k=1 (1) k/(4k

1).

8. Solve: an = 3an1 + 2n, a1 = 3

2 Pigeonhole principle
1. In a tournament with n players, everybody plays with everybody else exactly once. Prove that during the game there are always two players who have played the same number of games. 2. Twenty pairwise distinct positive integers are all < 70. Prove that among the pairwise dierences there are four equal numbers. 3. Suppose a is a prime to 2 and 5. Prove that for any n there is a power of a ending with
000 . . . 1 .
n

4. Inside a room of area 5, you place 9 rugs, each of area 1 and an arbotrary shape. Prove that there are two rugs which overlap by at least 1/9. 1

3 Permutation & Combinatorics

1. Suppose no diagonals of a convex n-gon pass through the same point. (a) Into how many parts is the n-gon divided. (b) Find the number of dierent triangles. 2. In how many ways can nhorses go through the nish? (There may be ties!) 3. How many subsets of {1, 2, 3, . . . , n} have no two successive numbers?