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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?

Haddaad Ma jiro xisaabis oo ku nool midkan, laakiin qaybaha ka mid ah waa la xisaabi karaa. Ku raaxayso mid ka hooseeya, ama ku qor adiga kuu gaar ah.

Ku hay shaqadaada

A xisaab bilaash ah oo ku daray qoraalada waxbarasho kasta, diiwaanka waxa aad dhamaatay, dhibaatooyinka aad xal u tahay meel kaliya, iyo macallinka aad weydiisan kartaa oo ku saabsan bogga. Xisaabta oo keliya waa u furan yahay qof kasta, la diiwaan geliyey ama aan.

Ku soo biir Ku soo gal

Calaamadaha la isticmaalay halkan

Taab calaamad kasta oo loogu talagalay qeexidda buuxda, sawir, iyo waxa xarfaha oo dhan ka mid ah ka dhigan tahay.

Su'aalaha dadku waydiiyaan

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.

Qaybaha ee boggaan waxaa la beddelay ka Keller & Trotter, Applied Combinatorics (CC BY-SA 4.0). Condensed iyo dib-oo halkan lagu sharaxay; khaladaadka waa inoo.

In ka badan Combinatorics & Graph Theory