Consider the numbers What is the smallest value of n such that every collection of n of these numbers will always contain a pair which sums to 121?
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A collection can have n ≤ 1 2 : just pick the first n .
Note 3 and 8 are the only listed numbers who aren't part of a pair of numbers listed that sums to 1 2 1 . the rest of the numbers ( 1 3 , 1 8 , … , 1 0 3 , 1 0 8 ) form 1 0 disjoint pairs that sum to 1 2 1 . By the pigeonhole principle, if we pick more than 1 2 numbers from the list, we must pick two numbers who sum to 1 2 1 . Therefore, the answer is 1 3 .