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Introduction

A professor decides to liven up the next combinatorics class by giving a door prize. As students enter class (on time, because to be late is a bit insensitive to the rest of the class), they draw a ticket from a box.

Introduction

A professor decides to liven up the next combinatorics class by giving a door prize. As students enter class (on time, because to be late is a bit insensitive to the rest of the class), they draw a ticket from a box. On each ticket, a positive integer has been printed. No information about the range of ticket numbers is given, although they are guaranteed to be distinct. The box of tickets was shaken robustly before the drawing, so the contents are thoroughly mixed, and the selection is done without looking inside the box.

After each student has selected a ticket, the professor announces that a cash prize of one dollar (this is a university, you know) will be awarded to the student holding the lowest numbered ticketfrom among those drawn.

Must the prize be awarded? In other words, given a set of positive integers, in this case the set of ticket numbers chosen by the students, must there be a least one? More generally, is it true that in any set of positive integers, there is always a least one? What happens if there is an enrollment surge and there are infinitely many students in the class and each has a ticket?

Issa inti L-ebda kalkulatur ma jista' jsolvi din il-problema, iżda l-biċċiet tagħha jistgħu jiġu kkalkulati. Ipprova waħda minn hawn taħt, jew ittajpja tiegħek stess.

Żomm tiegħek stess li jaħdmu

Kont b'xejn iżid noti fuq kull lezzjoni, rekord ta' dak li lest, problemi solvuti tiegħek f'post wieħed, u għalliem inti tista' tistaqsi dwar din il-paġna.Il-matematika nnifisha hija miftuħa għal kulħadd, log fil jew le.

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Simboli użati hawnhekk

Taptap kwalunkwe simbolu għad-definizzjoni sħiħa, stampa, u dak li kull ittra fiha tfisser.

Mistoqsijiet li n-nies jistaqsu

Permutation or combination?

Ask whether order matters. A lock code is a permutation (order matters); a hand of cards is a combination (it does not).

What is a graph in this sense?

Dots (vertices) joined by lines (edges), not a plot. Road maps, social networks and molecules are graphs; questions like "is there a route" and "how few colours" are graph theory.

Partijiet minn din il-paġna huma adattati minn Keller & Trotter, Applied Combinatorics (CC BY-SA 4.0). Kondensat u mill-ġdid spjegat hawn; żbalji huma tagħna.

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