EECS 203: Discrete Mathematics

Fall 2019
Discussion 6 Notes
1 Definitions
• Well Ordering Property :

• Counting with / without order:

• Counting with / without repetitions:

• Product Rule:

• Sum Rule:

• Inclusion-exclusion principle:

• Pigeonhole Principle:

• Generalized Pigeonhole Principle:

Solution:

• Well Ordering Property: An (infinite) set A with ordering < is “well ordered”
if every non-empty subset S ⊆ A has a least element (according to <).
Example of well-ordered sets are N and Z+ .

• Counting with / without order: The number of ways to arrange people in a

line is with order, the number of ways to choose a group of students is counting
without order as a group can be arranged in whatever order you want - it doesn’t
matter.

• Counting with / without repetitions: Rolling a die repeatedly is counting

with repetitions, since the same number can be rolled multiple times. Drawing a
card from a standard 52-card deck repeatedly, without replacement, is counting
without repetition, because once you draw a particular card (e.g., King of hearts)
you can’t draw the same card again.

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 • Product Rule: Suppose a procedure can be broken down into a sequence of k
tasks, where you have to do each task to complete the procedure. If there are nk
ways to do the k th task, then there are n1 · n2 · n3 · ... · nk ways to do all of the tasks
in the procedure.

• Sum Rule: Suppose that there are k distinct, disjoint methods to complete a
procedure such that k th method can be done in nk ways, then there are n1 + n2 +
... + nk ways of doing exactly one of these tasks.

• Inclusion-Exclusion Principle: Let S P be a union ofP sets Si that might

P not be
n−1
disjoint, then the cardinality of S is |S| = i=0 |Si | − i<j |Si ∩ Sj | + i<j<k |Si ∩
Sj ∩ Sk | − .... In English, this means that you take the sum of all the elements
in each set, exclude the intersection between any two sets, include the intersection
between any three sets, and so on.

• Pigeonhole Principle: If k is a positive integer and k + 1 or more objects are

placed into k boxes, then there is at least one box containing two or more of the
objects

• Generalized Pigeonhole Principle: If N objects are placed into k boxes, then

there is at least one box containing at least dN/ke objects.

1. 5.2 - Example 5
Use the well-ordering property to prove the division algorithm. Recall that the division
algorithm states that if a is an integer and d is a positive integer, then there are unique
integers q and r with 0 ≤ r < d and a = dq + r.

Solution:
Existence:
Let S = {x ∈ N | x = a − dq, q ∈ Z}. S is nonempty because we can pick some
q such that a − dq ∗ ≥ 0. By the well-ordering property, S has a least element. Call
∗

it r, where r = a − dq0 . By construction, r ≥ 0. Moreover, I claim that r < d. If it

were not, then there would be a smaller nonnegative element in S, namely, a − d(q0 + 1).
Consequently, there are integers q and r with 0 ≤ r < d.
Uniqueness:
Assume there exist q, r, q 0 , r0 such that a = dq + r = dq 0 + r0 . Then this means that
d(q − q 0 ) = r0 − r. This means that d is a factor of r0 − r, but since both r0 , r are between
0 and d − 1 inclusive, we have that −d < r0 − r < d, and so this immediately implies
that r0 − r = 0. So, our equation becomes d(q − q 0 ) = 0 ⇒ q = q 0 since d 6= 0.

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2. Exercise 6.1.16
How many strings are there of four lowercase letters that have the letter x in them?

Solution:
We can find the number of strings of four lowercase letter, and subtract the number
of strings of four lowercase letters other than x. Thus the answer is 264 − 254 = 66, 351.

3. Exercise 6.1.26
How many strings of four decimal digits

a) do not contain the same digit twice?

b) end with an even digit?

c) have exactly three digits that are 9s?

Solution:

a) There are 10 ways to choose the first digit, 9 ways to choose the second, and so on;
therefore the answer is 10 × 9 × 8 × 7 = 5040.

b) There are 10 ways to choose each of the first three digits and 5 ways to choose the
last; therefore the answer is 103 × 5 = 5000.

c) There are 4 ways to choose the position that is to be different from 9, and 9 ways to
choose the digit to go there. Therefore there are 4 × 9 = 36 such strings.

4. Exercise 6.1.40
How many subsets of a set with 100 elements have more than one element?

Solution: We know that there are 2100 subsets in all. 101 of them do not have more than
one element, namely the empty set and the 100 sets consisting of 1 element. Therefore
the answer is 2100 − 101 ≈ 1.3 · 1030 .

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5. Exercise 6.2.14
How many ordered pairs of integers (a, b) are needed to guarantee that there are two ordered
pairs (a1 , b1 ) and (a2 , b2 ) such that a1 and a2 have the same remainder when divided by 5,
and b1 and b2 also have the same remainder when divided by 5?

Solution: Each ordered pair can be simplified down by taking the remainder when di-
vided by 5 of each coordinate. Therefore, every coordinate can be written as a coordinate
pair (0, 0), (0, 1), (0, 2), ..., (4, 4) for a total of 25 possible pairs. Therefore, we need 26
pairs to guarantee that these statements hold.

6. Exercise 6.2.18
How many numbers must be selected from the set {1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15} to guarantee that
at least one pair of these numbers add up to 16?

Solution: We can group these into pairs that add up to 16 of: (1, 15), (3, 13), (5, 11), (7, 9).
Notably, no other pair of numbers sum to 16. Therefore, if we pick 5 numbers, it is guar-
anteed that we pick both numbers from at least one of these pairs.

7. Not in Book 1
Five distinct points are picked on the circumference of a sphere. Show that 4 of them must
lie on the same closed hemisphere (where a closed hemisphere is half of the circumference,
including the dividing circle).

Solution: Pick two points, this defines a circle on the sphere. This splits the surface of
the sphere into two hemispheres. By the Pigeonhole Principle, of the remaining 3 points,
two of them must be in the same hemisphere. Thus all four of them are on the same
closed hemisphere.

8. Exercise 6.3.46
How many ways are there for a horse race with four horses to finish if ties are possible?
[Note: Any number of the four horses may tie.]

Solution: We can solve this problem by breaking it down into cases depending on the
number of ties. There are five cases.

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 1) Assume that no horses tie. Then there are P (4, 4) = 24 possible ways for the horses
to finish.

2) Assume that there are two horses that tie, but the others have distinct finishes.
There are C(4, 2) = 6 ways to choose the horses to be tied, and P (3, 3) = 6) ways
to determine the order of finish for the three groups (the pair and the two single
horses). Thus there are 6 ∗ 6 = 36 ways for this to happen.

3) Assume that there are three horses that tie. By the same reasoning, there are
C(4, 3) ∗ P (2, 2) = 4 ∗ 2 = 8 ways for this to happen.

4) Assume that there are two groups of two horses that tie. There are C(4, 2) = 6
ways to choose the winners (the other two lose).

5) There is only one way for all the horses to tie.

Putting this all together, the answer is 24 + 36 + 8 + 6 + 1 = 75.

9. Not in Book 2
Find the coefficient of x2 in the expansion (x + x1 )10

Solution: Well, the kth term of this expansion is going to have power k − (10 − k) =
2k −
10. So, to find when the power is 2, we need that k = 6. This means the coefficient
is 10
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