Race Cars
Source: Iran 3rd round 2013 - Combinatorics exam problem 3
September 18, 2014
combinatorics unsolvedcombinatorics
Problem Statement
cars are racing. At first they have a particular order. At each moment a car may overtake another car. No two overtaking actions occur at the same time, and except moments a car is passing another, the cars always have an order.
A set of overtaking actions is called "small" if any car overtakes at most once.
A set of overtaking actions is called "complete" if any car overtakes exactly once.
If is the set of all possible orders of the cars after a small set of overtaking actions and is the set of all possible orders of the cars after a complete set of overtaking actions, prove that
(20 points)
Proposed by Morteza Saghafian