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
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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 = 1 0 1
So a + b + c = 2 3
a < b < c as they cant be equal and we have to not count duplicate solutions
So we have a = 1 , b = 2 , 3 , . . . 1 0
a = 2 , b = 3 , 4 , . . . . . 1 0
a = 3 , b = 4 , 5 , . . . 9
a = 4 , b = 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9
a = 5 , b = 6 , 7 , 8
a = 6 , b = 7 , 8
c is fixed in every case so we have 9 + 8 + 6 + 5 + 3 + 2 = 3 3 cases
For 5, we have 2 a + 1 + 2 a + 2 + . . . . . + 2 e + 1 + 1 + 2 e + 2 = 1 0 1 or a + b + c + d + e = 2 1 . 5 not possible
For 7 we have 2 a + 1 . . . . + 2 g + 2 = 1 0 1 or a + b + . . . + g = 2 0 but for 7 different integers minimum sum is 28. So further cases not possible with same reasoning