Questions tagged [pigeonhole-principle]

This tag is for questions involving the Pigeonhole Principle, which roughly states that if $n$ items are placed in $m$ containers and $n>m$, then at least one container has more than one item.

The Pigeonhole Principle roughly states that if $n$ items (e.g. pigeons) are placed in $m$ containers (e.g. pigeonholes) and $n>m,$ then at least one container has more than one item. Stated more formally, the Pigeonhole Principle asserts that there is no injective function whose codomain has smaller cardinality than its domain.

An example application of the Pigeonhole Principle is a demonstration that if five points are placed on a sphere, then there must be some hemisphere which contains at least four of these points: any two points define a great circle, which divides the sphere into two hemispheres. By the Pigeonhole Principle, one of these two hemispheres must contain at least two points. This hemisphere then contains four of the five points (the two on the boundary, and the two found via the Pigeonhole Principle).

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Pigeon Hole Question

Work shown below. "Suppose that the numbers 1 ,2 ,3 ,…,12 are randomly distributed around a circle. Prove or disprove each of the following assertions: a) There must be three neighbors whose sum is at least 20. b) There must be three neighbors whose…
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Pigeon Hole Problem with 3 integers

So, given any set of three integers, prove there is a pair whose sum us even, and then prove or disprove that there is a pair whose sum is odd. To prove that there is a pair whose sum is even, couldn't I say that since there are 3 integers that are…
JCMcRae
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123 persons in a cafe, and pigeons and boxes

$123$ persons are in a cafe. The sum of their ages is $3813$. Is it always possible to find $100$ among them so that their total age is greater or equal to $3100$? Looks like Dirichlet-Principle type of problem, but I cant' see the solution.
VividD
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four point in a row

We have painted all dots of page with two colors(blue and green), proof that there are four point with green color in a line that distance of any two neighbors of this four is one unit or there are two blue dots with one unit distance. other…
Mahdi
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10 non-increasing or non-decreasing sequence from 101 random numbers

In $101$ random integer numbers $a[i],i=0, \cdots,100$, prove that we can always find $10$ non-increasing or non-decreasing sequence. A sequence is a sequence of numbers is an array of numbers picking up from the original array with increasing…
aladine
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The Probabilistic Pigeon Hole Principle 2

(a) A group of 15 boys plucked a total of 100 apples. Prove that two of those boys plucked the same number of apples.
merin
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What Does "less than or equal to 1 apart" Mean?

I thought this question was classified as a word-meaning question. So, does "1 apart" mean 1/2 the side of the triangle? reference:
user87870
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Pigeon Hole Principle (involving distances)

There are 100 old(non-digital) watches in an antique shop, all running but not necessarily on time. Prove that at some moment of time the sum of the distances from the center of the shop to the center of the watches will be less than the sum of the…
Akshit
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Pigeonhole Principle & Fermat's Little Theorm

I'm having a terrible time grasping Fermat's Little Theorem & then an even rougher time trying to use one to prove the other. Any help on this question would be tremendously appreciated! xx "The Pigeon Hole Principle makes the obvious statement…
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Perfect Fourth Power - Pigeon Hole Principle

Let $a_1, a_2, ..., a_n$ be positive integers all of whose prime divisors are $\le$ 13. Show that if $n \ge 193$ then there exists four of these integers whose product is a perfect fourth power. I tried getting many pairs of numbers which multiply…
Jebediah
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Prove that any sequence $a_1,...a_n$, $n \geq 5$ contains a subsequence whose elements properly added or subtracted give a multiple of $n^2$

As in the title: Prove that any sequence $a_1,...a_n$, $n \geq 5$ contains a subsequence whose elements properly added or subtracted give a multiple of $n^2$ The idea is probably to use the pigeon principle as was done here For any sequence of $n$…
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An arc B with a circumference of 24 is drawn between K1 and K2 on a circle in the plane with a circumference of 42. 21 people mark circular arcs of…

I‘m not entirely sure, how to show the following statement: An arc B with a circumference of $24$ is drawn between K1 and K2 on a circle in the plane with a circumference of $42. 21$ people mark circular arcs of length $4$ on B clockwise. Prove that…
User1
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How to prove that the max distance between 5 points on a unit square perimeter is 0.75

5 Ants are walking across a squared window, with the side length of 1 meter. I need to prove that in any given moment there are at least two ants the the distance between them is less than 75 cm. I simplified the problem to the title: "How to prove…
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Pigeonhole principle with grid coloring

In a 13 by 8 rectangular grid, each cell can be colored red, white, or blue. Show that there are at least two 2 by 2 squares in the grid colored exactly the same. What's the best way to start on this? I'm unable to determine anything based on the…
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Perfect Score question, deleted by poster, earlier today

I don't know why they deleted their own problem. It's a good challenge, and someone may find it educational. Paraphrased: Forty students took a test that had three difficult questions - #1 on geometry, #2 on probability, and #3 on modular…
Bafs
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