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).

1565 questions
0
votes
0 answers

Applying the pigeonhole principle

Let A ⊆ {1, 2, . . . , 12} with |A| = 5. Prove that there are (a, b),(c, d) ∈ A × A with (a, b) /= (c, d) and a + b = c + d. I know that this requires the use of the pigeon rule but I am a bit confused about how that works or how to apply it here.
edie24
  • 1
0
votes
0 answers

Pigeonhole Principle for pairs of even integers sharing the same remainder

I have the following problem: "Let P(n) denote “If any n even integers are selected, then there must be a pair who share the same remainder under integer division by 12.” Let n* denote the smallest value of n for which P(n) is true. What is n*? …
Maru
  • 37
0
votes
0 answers

maximum number of points that can be placed in a square of area 2 units squared such that no two points are closer to each other than 2/3 units?

What is the maximum number of points that can be placed in a square of area $2$ units squared such that no two points are closer to each other than 2/3 units? Initally, this seemed to me like a problem for the pigeonhole principle, however I gave up…
Jamminermit
  • 1,923
0
votes
0 answers

${1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10}$ numbers are given and divided into 2 groups and let the groups be $A$ and $B$.Prove that $A$ or $B$ contains $a,b,a+b$.

${1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10}$ numbers are given and divided into 2 groups and let the groups be $A$ and $B$.Prove that $A$ or $B$ contains $a,b,a+b$. $A$ contains none of the elements in the $B$. $a$ is not equal to $b$ Is this problem can be solved? If…
Joshua
  • 168
0
votes
1 answer

Consider a set A of 100, 000 arbitrary integers. Prove that there is some subset of 22 integers that end in the same last three digits.

Consider a set A of 100, 000 arbitrary integers. Prove that there is some subset of 22 integers that end in the same last three digits. I'm new to this principle and need help on this problem.
0
votes
1 answer

Pigeonhole principle - how many people to get 2 with the same initials

I am trying to solve the following problem: There are 800 seats in the cinema. How many seats needs to be occupied in order to have at least 2 people with the same initials (first name and last name) in the cinema? I think it's a problem for…
Martin N.
  • 149
0
votes
1 answer

Pigeon hole principle for continuous spaces

Given a line segment of length L that contains n + 1 points, let D be the length of the shortest segment between consecutive points. What is the maximum value of D over all possible configurations of points? Note: It is a solved example from…
0
votes
1 answer

How do I show this, possibly using the pigeonhole principle?

Show that if you choose any $12$ real numbers between $1$ and $12$, three of them must be the sides of an acute triangle.
0
votes
1 answer

Pigeon Hole Application on a set

Find the minimum number of elements that one needs to take from a set $$ S = \{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10\}$$ to be sure that there exists at least 2 numbers with the sum of 10. Here are my work so far: These are the pairs with the sum of 10:…
0
votes
1 answer

Find the probability.

Suppose that an individual's initials consist of 3 letters of alphabet. Prove that in a large city there are at least two people with the same initials.
0
votes
1 answer

Any idea to solve this pigeon hole question?

Suppose that the mn people of a marching band are standing in a rectangular formation of m rows and n columns in such a way that in each row each person is taller than the one to his or her left. Suppose that the leader rearranges the people in each…
Alireza
  • 3
  • 3
0
votes
1 answer

Pigeonhole Principle: splitting into groups

Suppose that there are 51 students in a preschool. The students need to be divided into groups in order to play games. However, each student hates 3 other students, and if A hates B, they cannot be in the same group. What is the smallest number of…
0
votes
1 answer

Pigeonhole Principle Problem, where the principle doesn't work

Problem: A social worker has 77 days to make his visits. He wants to make at least one visit a day, and has 133 visits to make. Must there always be a period of consecutive days in which he makes 23 visits? Why? Using the pigeonhole principle…
Wesley
  • 1,567
0
votes
1 answer

Pigeon hole principle Cartesian product?

Let $A = \{0, 1, 2\}^{10}$. Show that every subset of $A$ with more than $1200$ elements contain two elements in which the $0’s$ appear in exactly the same positions. Ok. so A is just a subset of ordered pairs. Of which there are $9$ possibilities.…
Dani Jo
  • 93
0
votes
1 answer

Pigeonhole principle question 1

A competition is formatted such that every possible pair of participants compete against each other in a 1 vs. 1 match where there is always a winner and loser. There are a total of 2^n participants enrolled in the competition, where $n \in…