Combinatorics of sets

Let n 3 n \ge 3 be an integer. Suppose there exists a set S S of k n kn positive integers satisfying the following property: For every m = 2 , 3 , . . . , n m = 2, 3, . . . , n the set S S can be partitioned into two subsets with equal sums of elements, with one of subsets of cardinality m m .

Find the value of fixed positive integer k k .


The answer is 2.

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1 solution

Alapan Das
Sep 2, 2019

Let us start with m = 2 m=2 . Let ,the partitioned set are { a i , a j a_i,a_j } . Let, the sum of the elements be S S . Then a i + a j = S 2 a_i+a_j=\frac{S}{2} . And the some of the rest elements be S 2 \frac{S}{2} . Now, if m=3 and a p + a q + a r a_p+a_q+a_r = S 2 \frac{S}{2} and a p , a q , a r a i , a j a_p,a_q,a_r≠a_i,a_j ,then obviously there is only 5 elements. k n = 5 , n = 3 kn=5 , n=3 !!. So, surely we have to think of rather mixed condition. How is that? Let's see. Suppose for m = 2 m=2 the partitioned set with cardinality m m be { a i , a j a_i,a_j }. We have to proceed like this... For m = 3 m=3 . P 3 = P_3= { a i , a i 1 , a i 2 a_i,a_{i1},a_{i2} }.

Where, a i = a i 1 + a i 2 a_{i} = a_{i1} + a_{i2} . For, m = 4 m=4 we shall again replace a term of P 3 P_3 with two other terms of the rest set whose sum is equal to the former. Then how many elements do we have in the mother set? We can easily make mother set with 2 n ≤2n elements, but n ≥n elements. So, k = 2 k=2 .

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