POLYA’S ENUMERATION

THEOREM (PET) & PIGEONHOLE

PRINCIPLE
POLYA’S ENUMERATION
THEOREM
(PET)
 BACKGROUND AND HISTORY
GEORGE POLYA (1887-1985)
✗Considered as one of the most influential
contributors to mathematical problem
solving.
✗Collaborated with other colleagues
(William Burnside, George Pólya,
Augustin Louis Cauchy, and Ferdinand
Georg Frobenius) to develop the
Burnside-Pólya Enumeration theorem.
 BACKGROUND AND HISTORY
Polya’s Enumeration Theorem (PET)
✗Independently developed by Robert Redfield (1927) and
George Polya (1937)
✗Also known as Polya’s Theorem on Counting
✗Follows from and ultimately generalizes Burnside's
lemma on the number of orbits of a group action on a
set.
✗Examine all possible permutations of different numbers
of colored objects.
 DISCOVER.

✘How many distinct squares

can be made with blue or pink
vertices?
Polya’s Enumeration Theorem (PET)

1
Polya’s Enumeration Theorem (PET)
Polya’s Enumeration Theorem (PET)
Polya’s Enumeration Theorem (PET)
There are 6 distinct squares can be made with blue or pink
vertices
 Practice:

1. How many distinct equilateral

triangle can be made with red,
blue, green or white vertices?
 Practice:

2. How many distinct Regular

pentagon can be made with
yellow or white vertices?
 Assignment:

1. If we have a 3x3 square with 4

colors, how many different
colorings are there?
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE
 BACKGROUND AND HISTORY

✗1834 Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (1805-1859)

✗“Schubfachprinzip”
✗“Dirichlet principle”
✗1940 “Pigeonhole Principle” by Raphael M. Robinson.
✗Has many applications that range from computer data
compression to problems that involve infinite sets that
cannot be put into one-to-one correspondence.
The Pigeonhole Principle
Suppose a flock of us
pigeons fly into a set of
pigeonholes to roost, If
there are more of us
pigeons than pigeonholes,
then there must be at least
1 pigeonhole that has
more than one pigeon in it
 9 holes, and 10 = 9 + 1 pigeons.
So at least 1 hole contains at least 2 pigeons.
The Pigeonhole Principle
We can say that If k  1
or more pigeons fly
into k pigeonholes
where k  , then there is
at least one pigeonhole
containing two
or more of the objects.
The Pigeonhole Principle examples…
1. In a group of 367 people, there must be
at least two people with the same
birthday
• As there are 366 possible birthdays
2. In a group of 27 English words, at least
two words must start with the same
letter
• As there are only 26 letters
The Pigeonhole Principle examples…
3. If you have 7 Philippine peso bills, there
must be at least two of them sharing
the same value.
• As there are only 6 types of Philippine bank notes
released by the Banko Central ng Pilipinas in
present (20,50,100,200,500, & 1000)
Let’s generalize Pigeonhole Principle…

If you have N students in your class at

least how many of them share the same
birth month if:
a. N=13? There must be at least 2
b. N=17? There must be at least 2
There must be at least 3
c. N=25?
d. N=30? There must be at least 3
d. N=37? There must be at least 4
The Generalized Pigeonhole Principle
We can conclude that if
k pigeonholes are occupied by
N  nk  1 or more pigeons,
where N , k , n  , then at least
one pigeonhole is occupied by
n  1 or more pigeons.
The Generalized Pigeonhole Principle
and so… If you have N
pigeons inside some n
pigeonholes, then there exists
among them one pigeonhole
which contains an amount of
AT LEAST
N 
 k 
More examples…
Among 100 people, there must be at least 9 born
on the same month
• 100/12 = 9, N = 100, k = 12
How many students in a class must there be to
ensure that 6 students get the same grade (one of
A, B, C, D, or F)?
The “pigeonholes” are the grades. Thus, k = 5
Thus, we set N/5 = 6
Lowest possible value for N is 26
 More examples…
A drawer contains 10 black and 10 white socks.
How many socks need to be picked to ensure that
a pair is found?
• k=2; a pair=2 socks N/2 = 2, thus 3 is the lowest
possible value so N=3

15 Filipinos tried to hike the Washington mountain.

The oldest of them is 33, while the youngest one is
20. At least how many of them have the same age?
• N=15 Filipinos; k=range of age from 20 to 33 = 14
15/14 = 2, thus at least 2 of them have the same age.
 Activity
1. John has 30 socks in a box: 10 white, 10 red and 10 black.
How many socks must he pull out without looking, in order
to be guaranteed to have:
a.)two socks of the same color
b.)two different socks

2. If here are 6,000,000,000 humans in our world which are

less than 100 years old. At least how many persons have
been born at the same second.
 Activity
3. A bag of jellybeans contains dozens of jelly beans of each
of 8 different colors. How many jellybeans must we
choose in order to guarantee that we have at least two
jellybeans of the same color?
a. To guarantee three of the same color?
b. To guarantee four of the same color?