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1. Combinatorics is the study of counting or enumeration problems arising with sets, groups, graphs and other
discrete objects in mathematics.
2. Combinatorics problems are often the most basic and compelling problems in mathematics. Questions can often
be easily understood by non-specialists.
3. While the problem statements may be simple, the solutions usually require exceptional cleverness and skill.

4. Combinatorics is currently one of the most active disciplines in mathematics with subfields focusing on graph
theory, algebraic combinatorics and the theory of algorithms.
5. The field has important applications in virtually all areas of mathematics as well as natural sciences and computer
science.
6. This course will provide an in-depth introduction to Combinatorics with a focus on problem solving.

7. We will develop some of the basic techniques in the field motivated by the problems we consider.

Learning Goals:

1. Students will be able to apply elementary techniques to simple combinatorial problems.

2. Students will be able to find recurrence relations for some sequences.

3. Students will be able to apply generating-function methods to some combinatorial questions, including (in some
cases) the problem of finding a formula for a sequence when given a recurrence relation.
4. Students will understand some elements of graph theory.
5. Students will be able to apply the Principle of Inclusion-Exclusion to a variety of problems. Students will advance
his/her facility in learning abstract mathematics.

6. Students will be able to apply Pigeonhole principle where ever applicable.

7. Students will advance his/her facility in reading and constructing proofs.

Question Bank
1. |A × B| = |A| × |B|.

2. Find number of two digit numbers. |A × B|, where A = {1, 2, . . . , 9}, B = {0, 1, 2, . . . , 9}.
3. Assume an auditorium with a seat labeled by a letter and numbers in between 1 to 50 (e.g. A23). We want the
total number of seats in the auditorium.
4. License plates consisted of two letters followed by thee digits. How many possible license plates are there?

5. The number of positive integers less than or equal to 1000 that have at least two different digits.
6. The password can use the digits 0, 1, . . . , 9 with no restrictions, and it has to consist of at least four and at most
seven digits. How many possibilities are there?
7. How many binary strings of length 7 are there?
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8. Find the number of subsets of a set with n elements.

9. Number of functions.
10. Number of one-one functions
11. Number of onto functions
12. Number of positive divisors of a given number n.
13. If Un = {k ∈ N|1 ≤ k ≤ n, gcd(k, n) = 1}, then find |Un |.
14. Let d|n and Sd = {k ∈ N|1 ≤ k ≤ n, gcd(k, n) = d}. Then find |Sd |.
15. For any positive integer k, the number of k-digit positive integers is 9 · 10k−1 .
16. How many four-digit positive integers both start and end in even digits?.
17. A permutation of a finite set S is a list of the elements of S containing each element of S exactly once. If |S| = n
find number of permutations of S.
18. Now let us assume that a prospective thief saw me using my bank card. He observed that my password consisted
of five digits, did not start with zero, and contained the digit 8. If the thief gets hold of my card, at most how
many attempts will he need to find out my password?
19. Let n, k be nonnegative integers. And n ≥ k. Prove the following
(a) nk = n−k n



.
(b) k · k = n · n−1
n


k−1 .

20. Let n be a positive integer. Then for all x and y,

n  
n
(x + y)n = ∑ k xn−k yk .
k=0

n
n
n
n
21. 0 + 1 +···+ n = 2 .
n
n
n
n n


22. 0 − 1 + 2 − · · · + (−1) n = 0.
n
n
n
n−1 .
23. 0 + 3 + 5 +··· = 2
n
n
n
n−1 .
24. 0 + 2 + 6 +··· = 2
n
n
n
n−1 .
25. 1 · 0 +2· 1 +···+n· n = n·2
n
n
2 2n

26. ∑ k = n .
k=0
n
n
n

27. Show that 0 , 1 ,..., n is a unimodal sequence i.,e, if n is even, then
     
n n n
< < ··· <
0 1 n/2
     
n n n
> ··· > > .
n/2 n−1 n
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If n is odd, then      
n n n
< < ··· <
0 1 (n + 1)/2
     
n n n
> ··· > > .
(n + 1)/2 n−1 n

28. Let n be a positive integer. For all x1 , x2 , . . . , xt

 
n t
n
(x1 + x2 + · · · + xn ) = ∑ x1n1 x2n2 · · · xtn ,
n1 n2 · · · nt

where summation extends over all nonnegative integral solutions n1 , n2 , . . . , nt of n1 + n2 + · · · + nt = n and

n
n!
n1 n2 ···nt = n1 !n2 !···nt ! .
n n
n
k n
k
29. Show that ∑ k 2 = 3n . Can you generalize to find the sum ∑ k r for ant real number r.
k=0 k=0
n
n
n−k
30. Show that ∑ (−1)k k 3 = 2n .
k=0

31. Find the number of nonnegative integer solutions to a + b + c + d = 100.

32. Number of integer solutions of a + b + c + d = 15, where a ≥ 3, b ≥ 2, c ≥ 0, d ≥ 1.

33. How many integer solutions are there a + b + c + d = 15, where a ≥ −3, b ≥ 0, c ≥ −2, d ≥ −1.
34. Among 13 people,at least two people must have their birthday in the same month.
35. Take any five distinct positive integers,say 27, 45, 37, 98, 59. Do you find two integers which have the same
remainder when divided by 4 or are divisible by 4? Is this true for any four positive integers?
36. Let us select arbitrarily n + 1 from {1, 2, . . . , 2n}. Then
(a) there is a pair of one selected integers whose sum is 2n + 1.
(b) there is at least one pair of selected integers whose difference is n.

37. There is an element in the sequence 7, 77, 777, 7777, . . . that is divisible by 2019.
38. Show that if we take n + 1 numbers from the set {1, 2, . . . , 2n}, then some pair of numbers are relatively prime.
39. Given five points in the plane with integer coordinates, show that there exists a pair of points whose midpoint is
also has integer coordinates.

40. Show that among any five points inside equilateral triangle of side length 1, there exists two points whose distance
is at most 21 .
41. Prove that from ten distinct two-digit numbers, one can always choose two disjoint nonempty subsets, so that
their elements have the same sum.

42. There are 8 guests at a party and they sit around an octagonal table with one guest at each edge. If each place at
the table is marked with a different person’s name and initially everybody is sitting in the wrong place, prove that
the table can be rotated in such a way that at least 2 people are sitting in the correct places.
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43. Suppose we have 27 distinct odd positive integers all less than 100. Show that there is a pair of numbers whose
sum is 102. What if there were only 26 odd positive integers?
44. A function from a set with k + 1 elements to a set with k elements is not one-one.
45. Ten points are given within a square of unit size. Then there are two of them that are closer to each other than
0.48.

46. If N objects are placed in to k boxes, then there is at least one box containing ⌈N/k⌉ objects. (Or) If n pigeonholes
shelter kn + 1 pigeons, where k is a positive integer, at least 1 pigeonhole shelters at least k + 1 pigeons.
47. Among 100 people at least 9 will born in the month.
48. What is the minimum number of students required in combinatorial class to be sure that at least six will get the
same grade, possible grades are A, B,C, D, E and F.

49. During a month with 30 days a football team plays at least one game a day, but no more than 45 games. Show
that there must be a period of some number of days during which team must play exactly 14 games.
50. A computer program generated 175 positive integers at random. None of which have a prime divisor larger
than10. Prove that we can always find three numbers among these whose product is a cube of an integer.
51. Show that among n + 1 integers not exceeding 2n there must be two integers one divides the other.
Find the size of the largest subset A of {1, 2, . . . , 2n} satisfying the following condition: if a and b are distinct
elements of A, then a does not divide b.
A = {n + 1, n + 2, . . . , 2n} containing n elements. But is this the best possible? Surprisingly, yes!

52. Every sequence of n2 + 1 distinct real numbers contains a subsequence of length n + 1 that is either strictly
increasing or strictly decreasing.
53. Let m ∈ N and odd. Prove that there exists a positive integer n such that m divides 2n − 1.
54. Let X be a connected graph with n vertices, then show that at least two vertices will have the same degree.

55. A chess tournament has n participants, and any two players play one game against each other. Then it is true that
in any given point of time, there are two players who have finished the same number of games.
56. Show that in a group of six people, where any two people are either friends or enemies, there are either three
mutual friends or three mutual enemies.

57. Given a sequence of m integers a1 , a2 , . . . am , show that there exist consecutive terms in the sequence whose sum
is divisible by m. That is, show that there are i and j, with 1 ≤ i, j ≤ m, such that ai + ai+1 + · · · + a j is divisible
by m.
58. A canteen has 95 tables with a total of 465 seats. Can we be sure that there is a table with at least 6 seats?
59. There are 30 students in a class. While doing a keyboard skills test one student made 12 mistakes, while the rest
made fewer mistakes. Show that at least 3 students made the same number of mistakes.
60. How many bit strings of length eight either start with a 1 bit or end with the two bits 00?

61. Find the number of integers between 1 and 1000 inclusive, that are not divisible by 5, 6 and 8.
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62. How many permutations of the letters M, A, T, H, I, S, F,U, N are there such that none of the words MATH, IS,
FUN occur as consecutive letters.
63. How many integers between 0 and 99999 (inclusive) have among their digits each of 2, 5 and 8.
64. Determine the number of 10 combinations of multiset T = {3 · a, 4 · b, 5 · c}.
65. Assume we have n different toys and that we want to distribute among k children, where n ≥ k such that each
child has to get at least one toy. How many ways we can do this?

66. In a small town, n married couples attend a town hall meeting. Each of these 2n people wants to speak exactly
once. In how many we can schedule the 2n participants to speak if no married couple can take two consecutive
slots.

67. Formula for Euler Phi function.

68. A derangement of {1, 2, . . . , n} is permutation i1 i2 . . . in such that i j ̸= j. For example,
n derangements
n=1 No derangements
n=2 21
n=3 231, 312
2143 3142 4123
n=4 2341 3412 4312
2413 3421 4321
Suppose Dn denotes the number of derangements, then D1 = 0, D2 = 1, D3 = 2, D4 = 9. For n ≥ 1, show that
Dn = n! 1 − 1!1 + 2!1 − 3!1 + · · · + (−1)n n!1 .

69. Permutations with forbidden positions: Counting permutations of {1, 2, . . . , n} with restrictions on the integers
can occupy each place of the permutation. For example, Let X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn be subsets (possibly empty) of
{1, 2, . . . , n}. we denote P(X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ) be set of all permutations i1 i2 . . . in of {1, 2, . . . , n} such that i1 ∈
/ X1 , i2 ∈
/
X2 , . . . . That is a permutation of {1, 2, . . . , n} belongs to P(X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ) if elments of X1 does not occupy first
position, elments of X2 does not occupy second position etc. In particular if X1 = {1}, X2 = {2}, . . . , Xn = {n}
then P(X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ) is exactly the set of all derangements.

(a) If n = 4, X1 = {1, 2}, X1 = {2, 3}, X1 = {3, 4}, X1 = {1, 4}. Then find P(X1 , X2 , X3 , X4 ).
(b) The number of ways to palce n nonattacking indistinguishable rooks on an n × n board with forbidden
positions is equal to

n! − r1 (n − 1)! + r2 (n − 2)! + · · · + (−1)k rk (n − k)! + · · · + (−1)n rn ,

where rk is the number of ways to place k non-attacking rooks on n × n the board where each of k rooks is
in a forbidden positions, k ∈ {1, 2, . . . , n}.
70. Solve an+1 = 3an , a0 = 5
71. If an denotes the number of comparisons required to sort n numbers using bubble sort. Then show that
an = an−1 + (n − 1), a1 = 0.
72. Solve an = nan−1 , a1 = 1.
73. Find a recurrence relation with intial condition that uniquely determines each of the following sequences
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(a) 3, 7, 11, 15, 19, . . . ,

(b) 8, 24 72 216
7 , 49 , 343 , . . . ,

74. Find a recurrence relation and initial conditions for 1, 5, 17, 53, 161, 485, . . . .
75. Check that an = 2n + 1 is a solution to the recurrence relation an = 2 · an−1 − 1 with a1 = 3.
76. For n ≥ 0, let S = {1, 2, . . . , n}, let an denote the number of subsets that contain no consecutive integers. Find
and solve recurrence relation for an .

77. Suppose we have a 2 × n chessboard, for n ∈ N. We wish to cover such a chessboard using 2 × 1 or 1 × 2 dominoes.
Let bn count the number of ways we can cover 2 × n using 2 × 1 or 1 × 2 dominoes. Find and solve recurrence
relation for bn .

78. Find a recurrence relation for the number of binary sequences of length n that have to consecutive 0′ s.
b b 0 0 ... 0 0 0
b b b 0 ... 0 0 0
0 b b b ... 0 0 0
79. Let Dn = . .. .. .. . .. .. . Find the value of Dn as a function of n.
.. . . . . . . .. . .
0 0 0 0 ... b b b
0 0 0 0 ... 0 b b

a b 0 0 ... 0 0 0
b a b 0 ... 0 0 0
0 b a b ... 0 0 0
80. Let Dn = . .. .. .. . .. .. . Find the value of Dn as a function of n.
.. . . . . . . .. . .
0 0 0 0 ... b a b
0 0 0 0 ... 0 b a
81. For n ≥ 1. Let S be a set containing 2n real numbers. Find number of comparisons required to find maximum and
minimum elements of S.

82. For n ≥ 1. Let Xn = {1, 2, . . . , n}, P(Xn ) denote power set of Xn . Find number of edges in the Hasse diagram for
partial order (P(Xn ), ⊆).
83. For n ≥ 2. Suppose that there are n people at a party and that each of these people shakes hands (exactly one
time) with all of the other people there (and no one shakes hands with himself or herself). Find the total number
of shake hands.

84. Using only three letters a, b, c words of length n are to be transmitted over a communication channel subject to
the condition, that no word in which two a′ s appear consecutively is to be transmitted. Find the number of words
allowed by the communication channel.
85. solve the recurrence relation an+2 − 8an+1 + 16an = 8 · 5n + 6 · 4n , where a0 = 12 and a1 = 5.
86. Derive the formula for the sum of the cubes of the first n natural numbers using a recurrence relation.

87. How many integer solutions are there for the equation x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 = 25 if 0 ≤ xi .
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88. Find generating function for triangular numbers.

89. Find generating function for mth polygonal numbers.

∞ ∞
1
90. Show that ∏ 1−xn = ∑ p(n)xn .
n=1 n=0

91. Let 
1
 n=0
en = (−1)k if n = k(3k±1)
2

0 Otherwise.


Then show that ! !

∞ ∞
∑ p(n)xn ∑ en x n = 1.
n=0 n=0

92. Show that σ (n) = − ∑nk=0 kek p(n − k) where σ (n) = sum of the positive divisors of n. That is

σ (n) = ∑ d.
d|n

93. For what sequence is

(1 + x + x2 + x3 + x4 + x5 )(1 + x + x2 )(1 + x + x2 + x3 + x4 )

the generating function?

94. Determine the generating function for the number of n-combination of apples, bananas, oranges and pears, where
in each n-combination, the number of apples is even, the number of bananas is odd, the number of oranges is
between 0 and 4, and there is at least one pear.
95. Find the number hn of bags of fruit that can be made out of apples, bananas, oranges and pears, where in each
bag the number of apples is even, the number of bananas is a multiple of 5, the number oranges is atmost 4 and
the number of peras is 0 or 1.
96. Determine the generating function for the number hn of solutions of the equation e1 + e2 + · · · + ek = n in
nonnegative odd integers e1 , e2 , . . . , ek
97. Let hn denotes the number of nonnegative integer solutions of the equation 3e1 + 4e2 + 2e3 + 5e4 = n.
98. Determine the number of walks from (0, 0) to (m, n) allowing only unitsteps up or to the right. Find number of
bijective maps from a set A with n elements to a set B with k elements.

99. Let n and k be positive integers. Show that the number of partitions of n with exactly k parts equals the number
of partitions of n whose largest part is exactly k.
100. Prove that the number of partitions of n into distinct parts is equal to the number of partitions of n into odd parts.
101. Let n be a positive integer. Determine the number of lattice paths from (0, 0) to (n, n) using only unit up and right
steps, such that the path stays in the region x ≥ y.