2003 Singapore.doc

2003 Singapore Maths Project Festival (Senior Section) Applications of the Pigeonhole Principle River Valley High School Team members: Edwin Kwek Swee Hee Huang Meiizhuo Koh Chan Swee Heng Wee Kuan Contents Page §1. Introduction 1 §2. Pigeonhole Principle and the Birthday problem 2 §3. Pigeonhole Principle and problems on relations 2 §4. Pigeonhole Principle and divisibility 3 §5. Pigeonhole Principle and numerical property 4 §6. Pigeonhole Principle and Geometry Dartboard applications 6 Encompassing problems 8 §7. Application of pigeonhole principle in card games Combinatorial Card Trick 10 Permutation Card Trick 15 §8. Conclusion 18 Reference 19 Applications of the Pigeonhole Principle §1. Introduction We begin our discussion with a common daily embarrassing moment. Suppose that in one’s dresser drawer, he has socks of three different colours (all placed in messy order). Having to get up early in the morning while it is still dark, how does he ensure that he gets a matching pair of same coloured socks in the most convenient way without disturbing his partner? While, the answer is simple! He just has to take 4 socks from the drawer! The answer behind this is of course, the Pigeonhole Principle which we will be exploring in this Maths Project. What is the Pigeonhole Principle then? Let me give you an example to illustrate this principle. For instance, there are 3 pigeonholes around. A pigeon is delivering 4 mails and has to place all its mails into the available pigeonholes. With only 3 pigeonholes around, there bound to be 1 pigeonhole with at least 2 mails!. Thus, the general rule states when there are k pigeonholes and there are k+1 mails, then they will be 1 pigeonhole with at least 2 mails. A more advanced version of the principle will be the following: If mn + 1 pigeons are placed in n pigeonholes, then there will be at least one pigeonhole with m +