Dominoes? More Like Dominate

We place two dominoes on a 6 × 20 6\times 20 grid board in such way that the two dominoes do not intersect each other. How many ways can we do this?

D e t a i l s a n d a s s u m p t i o n s \bf {Details~and~assumptions}
A domino is a 1 × 2 1\times 2 (or 2 × 1 2\times 1 ) rectangle that occupies two adjacent 1 × 1 1\times 1 squares.


The answer is 22223.

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1 solution

Xuming Liang
Feb 15, 2014

Plan for counting:
(1)We will first count the number of ways to place one domino on the board.
(2)Next, we choose two of those ways for two dominoes to occupy.
(3)Finally, we subtract out the unwanted cases.


(1) We can position the domino either vertically or horizontally. For each direction we can easily count the number of ways to be 20 5 + 19 6 = 214 20*5+19*6=214

(2) We choose 2 2 out of the 214 214 placements, this gives ( 214 2 ) = 22791 {214\choose 2}=22791 ways to do that.

(3) Note that some of those ways violate our restriction that the two dominoes can't share any squares on the board. Since the 214 214 placements are all distinct, the two dominoes can only share one of their 1 × 1 1\times 1 square in order to form a violation. To count the number of violations,

Case 1: 2 horizontal dominoes
There are 6 × 18 = 108 6 \times 18 = 108 such pairs

Case 2: 2 vertical dominoes
There are \( 20 \times 4 = 188 \( such pairs

Case 3: 1 vertical, 1 horizontal domino
We observe there are \(4\) in a 2 × 2 2\times 2 square. If we count the number of 2 × 2 2\times 2 squares in this 6 × 20 6\times 20 board and then multiply it by 4 4 , we will get all the violations without over and under counting. Note that each inner lattice point on the board represents the center point of a 2 × 2 2\times 2 square, therefore each point determine a square. Since there are 5 19 5*19 inner lattice points, our desired number of violations is 4 5 19 = 380 4*5*19=380

This gives answer 22791 108 80 380 = 22223 22791-108 - 80- 380=\boxed {22223}

You forgot to subtract the cases where two horizontal dominoes overlap, and where two vertical dominoes overlap. This should give you a total of 22223.

Jon Haussmann - 7 years, 3 months ago

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oh my god I can't believe I missed that!

two overlapping horizontal or vertical dominoes form a 1 × 3 1\times 3 or 3 × 1 3\times 1 rectangle and there are 6 18 + 20 4 = 188 6*18+20*4=188 of those so yes the answer should be 22411 188 = 22223 22411-188=\boxed {22223} .

I knew there must be something wrong with my answer since it wasn't solved by anybody, yet I was too lazy to check my logic.

Thank you for pointing out my mistake Jon!

Xuming Liang - 7 years, 3 months ago

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I've updated the problem and correct answer to 22223. Can you update your solution accordingly?

Calvin Lin Staff - 6 years, 9 months ago

The answer is 22223. :\

Himanshu Arora - 6 years, 11 months ago

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