MathDB
Vietnam 1996 Combinatoric

Source: Most difficult problem for me

September 13, 2007
LaTeXinequalitiescombinatorics unsolvedcombinatorics

Problem Statement

Let be given integers k and n such that 1<=k<=n. Find the number of ordered k-tuples (a_1,a_2,...,a_n), where a_1, a_2, ..., a_k are different and in the set {1,2,...,n}, satisfying 1) There exist s, t such that 1<=sa_t. 2) There exists s such that 1<=s<=k and a_s is not congruent to s mod 2. P.S. This is the only problem from VMO 1996 I cannot find a solution or I cannot solve. But I'm not good at all in combinatoric...