This Statement is Frue. Wait What?

Logic Level 3

This is a generalisation of This Statement is Tralse. Wait What? .

Suppose we have a list of 2 n 2n statements ( n Z + n\in \mathbb Z^+ ) as follows:

P 1 At least 1 of these statements is true. P 2 At least 2 of these statements are true. P n 1 At least n 1 of these statements are true. P n At least n of these statements are true. P n + 1 At least n + 1 of these statements are false. P n + 2 At least n + 2 of these statements are false. P 2 n 1 At least 2 n 1 of these statements are false. P 2 n At least 2 n of these statements are false. \begin{array}{l l} P_1 & \text{At least 1 of these statements is true.} \\ P_2 & \text{At least 2 of these statements are true.} \\ & \vdots \\ P_{n-1} & \text{At least }n-1 \text{ of these statements are true.} \\ P_{n} & \text{At least }n \text{ of these statements are true.} \\ P_{n+1} & \text{At least }n+1 \text{ of these statements are false.} \\ P_{n+2} & \text{At least }n+2 \text{ of these statements are false.} \\ & \vdots \\ P_{2n-1} & \text{At least }2n-1 \text{ of these statements are false.} \\ P_{2n} & \text{At least }2n \text{ of these statements are false.} \\ \end{array} The statements P k P_k are in the form "At least k k of these statements are true" for 1 k n 1\leqslant k \leqslant n and "At least k k of these statements are false" for n + 1 k 2 n n+1\leqslant k \leqslant 2n .

How many of them is/are true?

None of the above 2 n 2n n 1 n-1 0 n n n + 1 n+1 2 n 1 2n-1 1

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2 solutions

Kenneth Tan
Dec 27, 2016

Take any statement P x P_x from P n + 1 P_{n+1} to P 2 n P_{2n} and assume it is true. Then since P x P_x is true, this implies that at least x x statements are false ( n + 1 x 2 n n+1\leqslant x \leqslant 2n ).

If any statement from P n + 1 P_{n+1} to P 2 n P_{2n} is true, statements P 1 P_1 to P n P_n must all be true (can you figure out why?).

We now have at least n + 1 n+1 true statements, in other words, we have at most n 1 n-1 false statements. This contradicts P x P_x as n 1 < x n-1<x .

Hence all the statements from P n + 1 P_{n+1} to P 2 n P_{2n} are false.

Now take any statement P y P_y from P 1 P_1 to P n P_n and assume it is false. Then we have at least n + 1 n+1 false statements, which implies that P n + 1 P_{n+1} is true, however this is a contradiction as P n + 1 P_{n+1} is already false.

Hence all the statements from P 1 P_1 to P n P_n are true.

Therefore, the number of true statements is n n .

Prince Loomba
Jan 3, 2017

There can be 3 cases, n n can be true, n + k n+k can be true or n k n-k can be true where k k is a positive integer.

  1. n n are true: Since n state,ents are true, all the statements from 1 1 to n n are true and rest are false, which implies our assumption.

  2. n + k n+k are true: n n statements are true definitely, so 1 1 to n n are true and k k statements of the rest are true. But the rest cannot be true because they can only be true when atleast n + 1 n+1 are false or atmost n 1 n-1 are true. A contradiction.

  3. n k n-k are true: First n k n-k statements are true definitely. This means n + k n+k are false, so atleast n + 1 n+1 should be false, making ( n + 1 ) t h (n+1)^{th} statement true, which means atleast n k + 1 n-k+1 are true, which contradicts our assumption.

So the only possible case is n \boxed {n} statements are true.

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