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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Please let me know how to do this step by step. I had tried , but no solution yet....

A store has an introductory sale on 12 types of candy bars. A customer may choose one bar of any five different types and will be charged no more than $1.75. Show that although different choices may cost different amounts, there must be at least two…
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Minimum number of chopsticks to get 4 pairs with same colors

There are 6 pieces of white chopsticks, 8 pieces of yellow chopsticks, and 10 pieces of blue chopsticks mixed together. If you want to get 4 pairs of chopsticks with the same colors in dark, at least how many pieces of chopsticks are needed to be…
Ved Rathi
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Seven people sit at a round table with 10 chairs. Show that there are three consecutive chairs that are occupied.

Problem: Seven people sit at a round table with 10 chairs. Show that there are three consecutive chairs that are occupied. Solution: Number the chairs from 1 to 10. There are 10 groups of three consecutive chairs: {1, 2, 3}, {2, 3, 4}, {3, 4, 5},…
milesma
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When sum of 100 terms is zero

The sum of one hundred given real numbers is zero. Prove that at least 99 of the pairwise sums of these hundred numbers are nonnegative. Is this result the best possible one? My “solution” is that , we know that not all numbers are negative,…
m3h3mm3d
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Pigeonhole Principle Question...Fifteen different integers from 100 to 199 are given.

Question was too long to fit on title. Fifteen different integers from 100 to 199 are given. Show that it is always possible to select from these 15 integers at least two different sets $\{a_1, b_1\}$ and $\{a_2, b_2\}$ such that the last two digits…
user73229
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Hints for the following question

Wondering if anyone is able to give help for this question (doing for my own learning, can't find any material online). Let’s say that an era is a historical time period with a definitive start date and definitive end date. For example, the Meiji…
KohLP
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Prove that if n + 1 distinct numbers are selected from 1 to 2n - 1, then there is always a number in selected ones that is sum of two other selected

It looks to me that this is Pigeonhole related question but can't come up with the proof. I tried this: Group numbers in pairs such that sum of pairs equals to 2n - 1. If 2n - 1 is selected then by Pigeonhole principle there will be a pair that is…
RBob
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Given set of 1011 positive numbers prove there are 2 numbers that their sum or difference is a multiple of 2020

I'm struggling solving this problem : I need to prove that given any set of 1011 positive integers, there are 2 numbers such that $x_1 + x_2$ or $x_1 - x_2$ is a multiple of 2020. basically I understand that I need to show that there are 2 numbers…
BOB123
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Where did 33 come from in this pigeon hole principle problem?

I have thought about this for some time and I can't justify how they got the number 33. For the $1\leq x_1
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Pingeonhole Theory, $200$ sweets, $20$ kids. Prove that at least $2$ kids receive the same number of sweets.

I understand the following: Assuming that every kid gets at least 1 sweet, then $(1+2+...19+20) = 210 > 200$, which is greater than the $200$ sweets stated. Meaning that the kid who received the $20$ sweets would instead receive $10$ which is the…
BodyB
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Pigeonhole principle : Prove that if we take 46 numbers from sequence 0,1,2,..,80 then are 2 numbers that subtraction can divided by 9

Prove that if we take 46 numbers from sequence 0,1,2,..,80 then are 2 numbers that subtraction can divided by 9 knowing that subtracting 2 numbers with same remainders of dividing by 9 the result is a number that divides by 9 without remainders
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How to choose the right pigeonholes

Let $A_n=\{1,2,3,...,2n\}$. Show that any $(n+2)\text{-}$element subset of $A_n$ contains two integers whose sum is in that subset. Any idea how to choose the pigeonholes please ?
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is given. prove that there is 3 numbers a, b, c that: $0.5<$a^2/bc<2 using pigeonhole principle.(n>2)

$2n-1$ numbers from {${1, 2, 3, ...,2^n-2}$} is given. prove that there is 3 numbers a, b, c that: $0.5<$a^2/bc<2 using pigeonhole principle.(n>2) we do not know which numbers selected. a, b, c are distinct numbers.
MMM
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How to identify pigeon and pigeon hole in this question?

Twenty numbers, each greater than 1, are picked from the set {1, 2, 3, . . . , 70} of the first seventy natural numbers. Prove that amongst the twenty numbers picked it is guaranteed that two of them, say a and b have a common factor greater than…
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minimum possible size of square field that there are 400 peoples in there with some requirements.

Given 400 peoples that would attend an invitation in a square field. Let $d$ be distance of each other and $d \geq 2$, $r_p=0.5$ be the radius of each person. Find the minimum possible size of square field so that that event can hold regularly. Can…
lap lapan
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