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2
2
2
2
1p
(x2 36)(x2 4).
=
4
Setting y = x2 gives us
5
1p
7=
(y 2 40y + 144)
4
4
.
Solving
this yields y = 11 or 29, and after rejecting 29, we see that
CE = 11.
How many subsets of S = {1, 2, . . . , 17} are there so that each subset
contains no two consecutive integers?
Solution: The solution is the 19th fibonacci number, f19 = 4181. The
idea is as follows. We can represent the ith Fibonacci number, fi where
f1 = f2 = 1, as the number of ways to tile a 1 by n 1 rectangle using
1 by 1 squares and 1 by 2 dominoes. This is easy to see by considering
the recurrence relation fn = fn1 + fn2 , where fn1 counts the number of
configurations where the last tile was a square and fn2 counts the number
of configurations where the last tile was a domino.
For our problem, the idea is that each number in the set S corresponds
to the location of a domino on a 1 by 18 rectangle. This gives a one-to-one
correspondence between the set S of all allowable subsets of S and the set of
all valid tilings of a 1 by 18 rectangle.
Reference: A. T. Benjamin, J. J. Quinn, Proofs That Really Count.
+
+
+
+ +
> 10
1+ 4
10 + 13
19 + 22
28 + 31
10000 + 10003
.
Solution: This solution is based on creating a telescoping sum and estimating it.
First, observe that 3( 1+1 4 + 10+1 13 + + 10000+1 10003 ) 1+1 4 +
1
1 + +
. Rationalizing the denominators of this second
4+ 7
10000+ 10003
sum gives:
1
1
4 1
7 4
10003 10000
1
+
+ +
=
+
+
.
3
3
3
1+ 4
4+ 7
10000 + 10003
The theorem holds ifthe right hand side is at least 30. We have a telescoping sum with value 100031
> 30. This proves the result.
3