Book has pages, right?

Logic Level 5

A book starts with the first page has page numbers 1 and 2, the second page has page numbers 3 and 4, so on and so forth. It has more than 100 pages.

Several (not necessarily consecutive) pages were torn out, but it doesn't include the first page. It is given that the sum of the page numbers on these torn pages is 101.

How many ways are there for the pages to be torn out?

Note: Its Original


The answer is 33.

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1 solution

Prince Loomba
Aug 26, 2016

Sum of page numbers of 1 page is odd. So 1 page can be there, 2 cant, 3 can and so on since 101 is odd

For 1 page this isnt possible sum can be 51+52=103 or 49+50=99, not in between

For 3, we let the page numbers be 2 a + 1 + 2 a + 2 + 2 b + 1 + 2 b + 2 + 2 c + 1 + 2 c + 2 = 101 2a+1+2a+2+2b+1+2b+2+2c+1+2c+2=101

So a + b + c = 23 a+b+c=23

a < b < c a <b<c as they cant be equal and we have to not count duplicate solutions

So we have a = 1 , b = 2 , 3 , . . . 10 a=1, b=2,3,...10

a = 2 , b = 3 , 4 , . . . . . 10 a=2, b=3,4,.....10

a = 3 , b = 4 , 5 , . . . 9 a=3, b= 4,5,...9

a = 4 , b = 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 a=4, b=5,6,7,8,9

a = 5 , b = 6 , 7 , 8 a=5, b=6,7,8

a = 6 , b = 7 , 8 a=6, b=7,8

c is fixed in every case so we have 9 + 8 + 6 + 5 + 3 + 2 = 33 9+8+6+5+3+2=33 cases

For 5, we have 2 a + 1 + 2 a + 2 + . . . . . + 2 e + 1 + 1 + 2 e + 2 = 101 2a+1+2a+2+.....+2e+1+1+2e+2=101 or a + b + c + d + e = 21.5 a+b+c+d+e=21.5 not possible

For 7 we have 2 a + 1.... + 2 g + 2 = 101 2a+1....+2g+2=101 or a + b + . . . + g = 20 a+b+...+g=20 but for 7 different integers minimum sum is 28. So further cases not possible with same reasoning

very good!!

Tahmid Ranon - 4 years, 7 months ago

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Thanks This is original one, thought while discussing with my friend on SLACK

Prince Loomba - 4 years, 7 months ago

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