Will Bradley UMTYMP AT Homework 1 (Bóna) Due 22 Sept 2020

1.22
Problem: Prove that there exists a positive integer n so that 44n − 1 is divisible by 7.
Solution: We will prove the statement by contradiction. For an arbitrary n, there are only 7 possible
remainders when 44n − 1 is divided by 7. By the Pigeonhole Principle, this implies that there are positive
integers k1 < k2 such that both 44k1 − 1 and 44k2 − 1 leave remainder r when divided by 7. In other words, for
positive integers m1 < m2 ,

44k1 − 1 = 7m1 + r, and

(1)
44k2 − 1 = 7m2 + r.

It follows that

44k1 − 44k2 = 7(m1 − m2 ), (2)

k1 −k2 k2
(44 − 1)(44 ) = 7(m1 − m2 ) (3)

Since the right-hand side is a multiple of 7 and 44 (and therefore any power of 44) is coprime with 7, 44k1 −k2 − 1
is a multiple of 7, as desired.

1.25
Problem: Complete the following sentence, that is a generalization of the Pigeonhole Principle to real numbers.
“If the sum of k real numbers is n, then there must be one of them which is. . . .” Prove your claim.
Solution: . . . greater than or equal to n/k. For a proof by contradiction, assume that every one of the k real
numbers is less than n/k. Then their sum is less than k · (n/k) = n, which violates our assumption that their
sum equals n. This implies that our original claim is correct. (By a similar argument, it could also be shown
that at least one of the numbers is at most n/k.)

1.30
Problem: We select n + 1 integers from the set {1, 2, · · · , 2n}. Prove that there will always be two among the
selected integers whose largest common divisor is 1.
Solution: Create n pairs of integers from {1, 2, · · · , 2n}:

(1, 2), (3, 4), · · · , (2n − 1, 2n). (4)

Note that these pairs are all coprime (since the greatest possible divisor of a number x is x/2). If we distribute
our n + 1 picked numbers across these n pairs, at least two numbers must fall in the same pair, meaning their
greatest common divisor is 1.
Will Bradley UMTYMP AT Homework 1 (Bóna) Due 22 Sept 2020

2.22
Problem: Prove that for all positive integers n,
13 + 23 + · · · + n3 = (1 + 2 + · · · + n)2 . (5)
Solution: Call the above proposition P (n). The base case, that 12 = 13 , holds. Then we assume that, for
any positive integer k, P (k) holds:
13 + 23 + · · · + k 3 = (1 + 2 + · · · + k)2 . (6)
Now our task is to prove that P (k + 1) must also hold. Let 1 + 2 + · · · + k be denoted by Sk . By substituting
k + 1 into the left-hand side of the proposition statement, we see that
13 + 23 + · · · + k 3 + (k + 1)3 = (1 + 2 + · · · + k)2 + (k + 1)3
(7)
= Sk2 + (k + 1)3 .
Of course, the following familiar identity exists for Sk :
k(k + 1)
Sk = . (8)
2
As such, Equation (7) becomes
2
k 2 (k + 1)2

k(k + 1)
+ (k + 1)3 = + (k + 1)3
2 4
4(k + 1)2 (k 2 + k + 1)
=
4
(k + 1)2 (k 2 + 4(k + 1))
= (9)
4
(k + 1)2 (k + 2)2
=
4
2
= Sk+1
= (1 + 2 + · · · + k + 1)2 ,
as desired. Therefore, by the Principle of Mathematical Induction, P (n) holds for all n ∈ N1 .
Pn
2.24 Problem: Find a closed formula (no summation signs) for the expression i=1 i(i + 1).
Solution: By using the basic arithmetic sequence formula, we can write this sum as
n
X n
X n
X
i(i + 1) = i2 + i
i=1 i=1 i=1
n
(10)
X
2 n(n + 1)
= i + .
i=1
2

Now our goal is to find the sum on the left-hand side of the +, which is commonly known to be
n(n + 1)(2n + 1)
, (11)
6
a proposition that we will call P and prove by induction. The base-case, P (1), holds, as 12 = 1 · 2 · 3/6. Now we
assume that, for some positive integer k, P (k) holds:
k
X k(k + 1)(2k + 1)
i2 = (12)
i=1
6

Our task is now to show that P (k + 1) also holds. Indeed,

k+1
X k
X
i2 = i2 + (k + 1)2
i=1 i=1
k(k + 1)(2k + 1)
= + (k + 1)2
6 (13)
2k 3 + 9k 2 + 13k + 6
=
6
(k + 1)((k + 1) + 1)(2(k + 1) + 1)
= ,
6
Will Bradley UMTYMP AT Homework 1 (Bóna) Due 22 Sept 2020

as desired. Substituting the sum-of-squares formula (11) back into the original expression, we find that
n n
X X n(n + 1)
i(i + 1) = i2 +
i=1 i=1
2
n(n + 1)(2n + 1) n(n + 1) (14)
= +
6 2
n(n + 1)(n + 2)
= .
3

2.34
Problem: Prove that for any positive integer n, it is possible to partition any triangle T into 3n + 1 similar
triangles.
Solution: The base case (n = 1) is true, as we can split up an arbitrary triangle into 4 similar triangles, as
shown below:

Now for the induction step: for a positive integer k, assume that we can partition a triangle T into 3k + 1 similar
sub-triangles. Then we show that we can partition T into 3(k + 1) + 1 = 3k + 4 sub-triangles by splitting an
arbitrary sub-triangle T0 into four similar triangles. We now have 4 more similar sub-triangles, but we also don’t
count T0 in the partition because a partition’s elements must be disjoint. This leaves us with a net increase of
3 similar sub-triangles, for a total of 3k + 4 similar sub-triangles (of T ), which completes the induction steps.
Therefore, by the Principle of Mathematical Induction, the problem statement is true.
Will Bradley UMTYMP AT Homework 1 (Bóna) Due 22 Sept 2020

3.30
Problem: How many four-digit positive integers are there in which all digits are different?
Solution: For the first digit, there are 9 choices (one through nine). For the second digit, there are ten choices
(zero through nine), but we already used one in the first digit, so really there are nine choices. By similar logic,
there are 10 − 2 = 8 and 10 − 3 = 7 choices for the third and fourth digits, respectively. Therefore, the answer is
9 · 9 · 8 · 7 = 4536.

3.34
Problem: In how many ways can the elements of [n] be permuted so that the sum of every two consecutive
elements in the permutation is odd?
Solution: The key here is that any two elements of [n] must either be even and then odd or odd and then
even (for their sum to be odd).
First, let’s consider the case in which n is even. Then there are n choices for the first element. Since the
next element needs to have opposite parity, there are only n/2 choices. The third element needs to have the
same parity as the first, and so there would seem to again be n/2 choices, but we already used one for the first
element, so there are really n/2 − 1. Similarly, there are n/2 − 1 and n/2 − 2 choices for the fourth and fifth
elements, respectively. If we notice that after the first two terms, the number of choices decrements by 1 every
two elements, we can generalize this idea with the following equation.
n h n  i2
n· · −1 ! . (15)
2 2
In the case when n is odd, things are more complicated. There is an odd number of one parity, and that
parity must go first and last for the alternating pattern to hold. This means that right off the bat we only have
dn/2e choices for the first element and bn/2c for the second. For the third element, there are dn/2e − 1 choices,
and for the fourth, bn/2c − 1. Similarly to the first paragraph, we can write this pattern as

dn/2e! · bn/2c!. (16)

3.35
Problem: Let n = p1 a1 p2 a2 · · · pk ak , where the pi are distinct primes, and the ai are positive integers. How
many positive divisors does n have?
Solution: As an example, let’s write some divisor as a product (some) of the prime factors:

d = p1 1 · 1 · p3 5 · p4 a4 −3 · · · (17)

What is apparent is that constructing divisor d from primes is equivalent to creating k bins, each with ai + 1
exponents (representing {0, 1, 2, · · · , ai }), and then choosing one exponent from each bin. Thus, the total number
of divisors is the product
Yk
(ai + 1). (18)
i=1

3.40
Problem: We want to select an ordered pair (A, B) of subsets of [n] so that A ∩ B 6= ∅.
Solution: There are 2n subsets of [n], for a total of 2n · 2n = 4n ordered pairs of those subsets. Now we will
use complementary counting to find the number of intersecting subset-ordered-pairs by finding the number of
ordered pairs (A, B) such that A and B are disjoint. For each element k in [n], we can make A and B disjoint if
we put k in either A or B (but not both) or neither. Thus, there are three choices for each element of [n] and n
elements, so 3n possible ordered pairs of disjoint sets. This means that the number of ordered pairs that have a
non-empty intersection is 4n − 3n .

3.44
Problem: Let P be a convex n-gon in which no three diagonals intersect in one point. How many intersection
points do the diagonals of P have?
Solution: Number the vertices of the n-gon from p1 to pn in clockwise order. Now we need to restrict the
vertices in which intersections occur. In the case of a hexagon, a diagonal from p2 to p5 can only be intersected
by diagonals from p1 or p6 to p3 or p4 — a total of 2 · 2 = 4 such intersections. In general, it is the case that for
a diagonal d1 , d2 will only intersect it if both vertices of d2 do not come from the same partition of the polygon
made by d1 .
Now consider an arbitrary point p1 on P . If we extend a diagonal from p1 to its neighbor two clockwise
points away, the number of possible intersections is 1 · (n − 3). Similarly, if we extend from p1 to p4 , the number
of intersections is 2 · (n − 4). Indeed, this pattern continues until our point is two counterclockwise points away
Will Bradley UMTYMP AT Homework 1 (Bóna) Due 22 Sept 2020

from p1 , which makes the number of diagonal intersections (n − 3) · 1. Thus, sum of diagonal intersections that
involve diagonals that pass through p1 can be written as
n−3
X n−3
X n−3
X
i(n − 2 − i) = (n − 2) i− i2
i=1 i=1 i=1
2
(n − 2) (n − 3) (n − 3)(n − 2)(2n − 5) (19)
= −
2 6
(n − 1)(n − 2)(n − 3)
= .
6
This is still only for one vertex, so we multiply it by n. Of course, now it’s double-counting diagonals as well as
the intersections themselves, so we divide it again by 4 and obtain

n(n − 1)(n − 2)(n − 3)

. (20)
24
3.48

Problem: In how many ways can we place n non-attacking rooks on an n-by-n chess board?
Solution: For the rooks to not attack one another, they must never be in the same column or row of the
board. Since there are n rooks and n columns, every row must therefore have a unique column in which that
row’s rook resides, which we call ci . For example, in a 4×4 board, the each rook must have a unique column from
the set {c1 , c2 , c3 , c4 }. Then we can represent the rooks’ positions as a sequence of these column indices, moving
from the top row to the bottom; for example, the following chess board would have a sequence of {c3 , c2 , c4 , c1 }.

0ZRZ
ZRZ0
0Z0S
S0Z0
Then the number of possible non-attacking positions is just the number of rearrangements of these column indices;
therefore, the answer is n!.