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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Pigeonhole Principle Help!!!

The nine entries of a $3 \times 3$ grid are filled with the integers -1, 1 and 0. Use the Pigeonhole Principle to prove among the eight resulting sums (three rows , three columns or two diagonals) there will always be two that add to the same…
Luke
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Show that two points must be there with distance less than 5

Given a rectangle 12 x 20 and 21 points within it, there must be two points that are less than 5 units apart. My thoughts: I tried dividing the rectangle by drawing a horizontal line in the middle and 10 vertical lines, which makes 20 small boxes of…
nicku
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Let $n$ be a positive integer that has exactly three prime divisors, and at least seven divisors of the form $p^k$, where $p$ is a prime,$k$ is a…

Occasionally I don’t understand how the pigeonhole principle should be used in some relevant problems. For example the following exercise is supposed to be solved by this principle: Exercise. Let $n$ be a positive integer that has exactly three…
user1007173
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Prove that the Pigeonhole Principle is equivalent to "the max is at least the average".

I can see that the statement "Let $A$ be a finite, nonempty set of real numbers, with average $\overline A$. Then $\max A \ge \overline A$." has something about it that seems like the Pigeonhole Principle. But I can't quite see how to prove that…
Addem
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Pigeonhole theorem

When we need to use the Pigeonhole theorem and why we are using the Pigeonhole theorem in this case? I also have a question below: Each tile has one letter on it, and a point value in the bottom right hand corner (e.g. "M" is worth 3…
Alan Bish
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Proving same score given sum of score using PHP

Encountered this question while practicing. Sadly there was no solution given. Sounds like a PHP question but with so little information given I am wondering how it can be solved. Any hints/help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. 21 students took…
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using pigeonhole principle for a hand of thirteen cards

Say I shuffle and deal a hand of thirteen cards. How can I apply the pigeonhole principle in these cases: The hand has at least four cards in the same suit The hand has at exactly four cards in some suit The hand has at least five cards in some…
meiryo
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Pigeon Hole: The row of numbered houses problem, why couldn't I include the mentioned ranges in my pigeon holes options?

The problem is as follow: A row of houses are randomly assigned distinct numbers between 1 and 50 (inclusive). How many houses must there be to insure that there are 5 houses numbered consecutively? Its solution: Split the numbers into 10…
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How many balls to draw to ensure balls of same color?

We have a bag which contains $5$ red balls, $8$ blue balls, $10$ white balls, $12$ green balls and $7$ yellow balls. How many balls should we pick to ensure a) at least 4 balls have the same color? b) at least 6 balls have the same color? c) at…
Hossein
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pigeonhole principle - 17 mathematicians and 3 languages, prove that 3 communicate in the same language pairwise

There are 17 mathematicians and 3 official languages. Every pair of mathematicians communicate in one of the official languages. Prove that there are 3 mathematicians communicating in the same language pairwise. This is what I got: At least one…
MPP
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How do I prove that each number is in a pigeonhole? (Edit: figured it out, thanks!)

Consider a set of $n+1$ positive integers, each less than or equal to $2n$. Show there must always exist a pair of integers in the set, one dividing the other. We use pigeonhole principle. For $1 \leq k \leq n$, let the $$k\text{th pigeonhole} =…
beginner
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Pigeonhole principle help with integer sequence

Can someone help me understand the following logic using the pigeonhole principle: If a sequence of $n$ integers $x_1, x_2,...,x_n\;(n\geq2,x_i \geq 0)$ sums to $n^2-3n+2$, then either of the following is true: at least one $x_i$ satisfies $x_i…
pblpbl
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Pigeonhole principle proving that 2 children out of 15 received the same number of sweets, from 100

Whilst I do understand this conceptually I do not know how to formally provde this. 100 sweets were distributed between 15 children. Use the pigeonhole principle to prove that 2 children received the same number of sweets.
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Pigeonhole principle to prove that given $4$ numbers the difference between two numbers is divisble by $3$

"Use the Pigeonhole Principle to show that among any four numbers one can find two numbers so that their difference is divisible by $3$." I am struggling with this supposedly basic question on one of our past paper as its only worth $3$ marks.
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Prove that $S$ has at most $n$ free points

Problem Statement: Given $m = 2n$, let $S$ be a set of $m$ points on a circle with no two diametrically opposite. Say that $x \in S$ is free if fewer than $n$ points on $S - x$ lie in the semicircle clockwise from $x$. Prove that $S$ has at most…