Seminar in Problem Solving in Mathematics

ACTIVITY:
Trip to Jerusalem
This game is played by arranging chairs in a circle.
PLAYERS should be one more than the CHAIRS.
Music is played as players go around the chairs.
Players must then take a seat once the music
stops.
The person who doesnt get seated
is ELIMINATED. A chair is also
removed from the circle as the game
progresses. The game gets real
when theres only one chair left and
two players fight for it.
 PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

The word "pigeonhole"

literally refers to the
shelves in the form of
square boxes or holes
that were utilized to place
pigeons earlier in the
United States.
 Pigeonhole PRINCIPLE
In mathematics, there is a concept,
inspired by such pigeonholes, known
as pigeonhole principle which was
introduced in 1834 by a German
mathematician Peter Gustav Lejeune
Dirichlet. On his name, this principle is
also termed as Dirichlet principle.
 Pigeonhole PRINCIPLE
Pigeonhole principle roughly
states that if there are few boxes
available; also, there are few
objects that are greater than the
total number of boxes and one
needs to place objects in the
given boxes, then at least one
box must contain more than
one such objects.
 Pigeonhole PRINCIPLE
Example:
A box contains three pairs of socks colored
red, blue, and white, respectively. Suppose I
take out the socks without looking at them.
How many socks must I take out to be sure
that they will include a matching pair?
 Pigeonhole PRINCIPLE
If I take only 2 or 3 socks, it is
possible that they are all different.
But if I take out 4 socks, these must
include a matching pair.
Here the 4 chosen socks are the
"objects" and the colors are the
"boxes.
Thus the minimum number of socks
to be taken out is 4 .
 Pigeonhole PRINCIPLE
At first glance, the pigeonhole
principle might appear to be too obvious
to be useful; indeed, the power of the
principle comes from cleverly choosing the
"boxes" and "objects."
 Basic
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE
 Basic PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE
The pigeonhole principle in its simplest
incarnation, states the following:
If you have more pigeons than
pigeonholes, and you try to stuff the
pigeons into the holes, then at least one
hole must contain at least two pigeons.
 Basic PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE
Suppose a flock of pigeons fly into a set of
pigeonholes to roost.

If there are more pigeons than pigeonholes, then

there must be at least 1 pigeonhole that has
more than one pigeon in it.
 Basic PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE
If k+1 or more objects are placed into k boxes,
then there is at least one box containing two or
more of the objects.
Basic Pigeonhole Principle

EXAMPLES
 Basic PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE
1) Show that among three students, two
must be of the same gender.
 Solution (1):
What will be our Holes?

MALE FEMALE

What will be our Pigeons?

 Basic PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE
2)Prove that in any group of
six people there are either
three mutual friends or
three mutual strangers.
(Assume that friendship is always
reciprocated: two people are either
mutual friends or mutual strangers.)
Solution (2):

FRIENDS STRANGERS
 Basic PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE
THE SODA PROBLEM
3) How many students would
be required to place soda
orders, one soda per student,
in order to ensure that at least
one of the six listed sodas
would be ordered by at least
two students?
Solution (3):THE SODA PROBLEM
A B C D E F

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
 Basic PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE
4)Show that if there are 16 people and 5
possible grades, 4 people must have the
same grade.
 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE
 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

If you have p pigeons and h holes, then at

least one of the holes contains at least []


pigeons.
Notice that the basic pigeonhole principle
is a corollary of this statement: we have
p>h, so the quantity [ ] is at least 2.


Intermediate Pigeonhole Principle

EXAMPLES
 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

1) If 19 balls are to be put back

into 9 tubes, then at least one
tube will have more than 2
balls.
Let p be the number of balls
h be the number of tubes

= = 2.1 ~3

 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

2) 63 toys are to be shared among 20

children. Show that at least one of them will
get 4 or more toys.
 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

SOLUTION (2):
p = 63 toys
h = 20 children

= =3R3

 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

3) 400 new students enrolled in

BISCAST this year.
a) At least how many students
are born in the same month?
b) At least how many students
are born on the same day?
 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

4)15 tourists tried to hike

the Mt. Isarog. The oldest of
them is 33, while the
youngest one is 20. At least
how many of them are in
the same age?
 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

Here is an example that uses repeated

application of the intermediate pigeonhole
principle.
 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

5) Forty-one rooks are placed on a 10x10

chessboard. Prove that there must exist five
(5) rooks, none of which attack each other.
Given:
41 rooks =p
10X10 chessboard =h
 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

We seek 5 rooks that do not attack one another.

Two rooks do not attack C1 C2 C3 C4
if they are located on
different rows and R1
different columns.
R2
So we need to find 5
rooks, each living in a R3
different row, and each
living in a different R4
column.
 41 rooks &
10 rows

= =5

At least 1 row will contain 5
rooks.
We will take 5 rooks and place
it to the 1st row leaving

31 rooks &
9 rows

= =4

At least 1 row will contain 4
rooks.
We will take 6 rooks and place
it to the 2nd row leaving

21 rooks &
8 rows

= =3

At least 1 row will contain 3
rooks.
We will take 7 rooks and place
it to the 3rd row leaving

11 rooks &
7 rows

= =2

At least 1 row will contain 4
rooks.
We will take 8 rooks and place
it to the 4th row leaving

1 rook &
6 rows

= =1

At least 1 row will contain 1
rook.
 Now there are five
special rows on the
chessboard,
containing at least
5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 rooks,
respectively.
Now we have 5 rooks
that do not attack
one another!
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION
 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

This elaborate problem was a good

illustration of both the pigeonhole principle
and the wishful thinking strategy, i.e., not
giving up. When you think that a problem
can be attacked with the pigeonhole
principle, first try to do the job neatly.
 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

Look for a way to define

pigeons and holes that yields a
quick solution. If that doesn't
work, don't give up! Use the
pigeonhole principle once to
gain a foothold, then try to use
it again. Keep extracting
information!
 Advanced
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE
 Advanced
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

The examples here are harder problems.

Some are hard because they require other
specialized mathematical ideas together
with the pigeonhole principle. Other
problems require only basic pigeonhole,
but the pigeons and/or holes are far from
obvious.
Advanced Pigeonhole Principle

EXAMPLES
 Advanced
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

This number theory problem uses only basic

pigeonhole, but with very cleverly chosen pigeons.

1) Let n be a positive integer. Show that if

you have n integers, then either one of
them is a multiple of n or a sum of
several of them is a multiple of n.
 Advanced
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

We need to show that something is a

multiple of n. Let the pigeonholes be the n
different possible remainders one can
have upon division by n. Then if two
numbers lie in the same pigeonhole, their
difference will be a multiple of n.
 Solution (1):
Let the pigeons be the sums themselves, the
differences of the pigeons will still be sums.
Let the numbers in our set be a1,a2,,an .
Let p for pigeons.
p1 = a 1 ,
p2 = a 1 + a 2 ,
.
.
.
pn = a1 + a2 + + an
 Solution (1) continuation

We have n pigeons p1,p2,, pn .

There are two cases
a) One of the pigeons has a remainder of 0 upon
division by n .
b) None of the pigeons has a remainder of 0, so
now we have just n - 1 pigeonholes to consider.
With n pigeons, two of them must have the
same remainder, so their difference, a sum of
several of the original numbers, will be a
multiple of n .
 Advanced
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

2) Let n be a positive integer. Choose any

(n+1) element subset of {1,2,,2n}.
Show that this subset must contain
two integers, one of which divides the
other.
 Solution (2):
We partition the set {1, 2,,2n} into at most n
disjoint subsets.
Lets verify with a small values of n
Let n = 5.
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10} five disjoint subsets
Pick five seeds that can be used for other values
of n .
1,3,5,7,9
To get the remaining numbers, we just have to
multiply the seeds by 2.
 Solution (2) continuation

{1,2,4,8}; {3,6}; {5,10}; {7}; {9}

Therefore, the two cohabitors must live in

either {1,2,4,8} or {3,6} or {5,10}, for then
one of the two cohabitors is a multiple of
the other.
 Additional Information in
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE
Why teach Pigeonhole Principle?

It provides a visual to
students to learn
mathematical concepts.
It improves the students
problem solving skills.
 APPLICATION
Pigeonhole principle is widely applicable to
many fields such as:
Number Theory Economics
Probability Finance
Algorithms Computer science
Mathematical analysis Computer
Arithmetic programming
Geometry
Pigeonhole Principle
EXAMPLES
 PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

1) Golf: Let us suppose that there are 8

balls and 7 holes. If balls are to be put in
different holes, then at least one hole must
have more than one ball.

(no.of balls)
= =2
(no.of holes)
 PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

2) Handshake: If a number of people does

handshake with one another, then according to
pigeonhole principle, there must exist two
people who shake hands with same people.
Let n be the number of people
n-1 be the amount of handshake
Suppose n=5
(no. of people)
= =2
(no.of handshake)
 PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

3) Birthday: Let us consider that n people

are chosen at random from a group of
people. Then, in order to find the probability
of having same birthday, pigeonhole
principle is applied. It says that at least two
people will have same birthday.

(Given in the ex. #3 in Advanced Pigeonhole Principle)

 PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

4) Marble picking: Consider that we have a

mixture of different color marbles in a jar. In
order to find at least how many marbles will
be picked before two same color marbles
are guaranteed. It can be calculated using
pigeonhole principle assuming one
pigeonhole per color will be assumed.
 PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

There are 5 blue, 8 green, 9 white and 2

black marbles in a box. At least how many
marble you must draw before you get the first
green one?
 PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE
SOLUTION:
There are 16 blue, white and black marbles.
In the worst-case scenario, you may have to
draw the rest of the marbles before you get
the first green one.
16+1 = 17 marbles
So you must at least draw 17 marbles before
you get the first green one.
 REFERENCES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeonhole_principle
https://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/ffiles/10001.4.shtml
http://io9.gizmodo.com/why-the-pigeonhole-principle-is-
one-of-maths-most-power-1601025172
https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pige
onholePrinciple
The Art and Craft of Problem Solving by Paul Zeitz
pp.84-91
 HYPERLINKS
Slide 58 Brief Description
of Peter Gustav Dirichlet

Back to Slide 3

Back to Slide 26 Go to Slide 59 for solution

Back to Slide 27 Go to Slide 60 for solution

 Prepared by:
Group 7
LUMBANG, Leny B. Advance PHP
LLAGAS, Elma M. Intro/Intermediate PHP
GALVO, Jennilyn A. Other Info
FELICIANO, Melissa Joy B. Basic PHP
 JOHANN PETER GUSTAV
LEJEUNE DIRICHLET
A German mathematician who made deep
contributions to number theory (including
creating the field of analytic number theory),
and to the theory of Fourier series and other
topics in mathematical analysis; he is
credited with being one of the first
mathematicians to give the modern formal
definition of a function.
 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

SOLUTION (3):
a) At least how b) At least how
many students many students
are born in the are born in the
same month? same day?

=2
= 34
=
=

 Intermediate
PIGEONHOLE PRINCIPLE

SOLUTION (4):
First we have to know the total number of age of
the tourist from 33 to 20. To do so subtract 33
from 20 then add 1. (33-20+1=14)
Let p be the number of tourist
h be the number of ages

Therefore, there are at least 2

= =2
tourist with the same age.
QUIZtime
INSTRUCTION: Read the following statement carefully and provide what is being asked.

1. He is a German mathematician who

introduced the pigeonhole principle in 1834.

2. The pigeonhole principle is also termed

as _____________________.
INSTRUCTION: Read the following statement carefully and provide what is being asked.

3. If there are k number of boxes, how many

objects must be there so that there exists at
least one box containing two objects?

4. Give at least one (1) field of study where

pigeonhole principle is applied (except for
mathematics and science).
INSTRUCTION: Apply the Pigeonhole Principle to solve the problem:

5. Suppose there are 29 students in class. At

least how many students were born on the
same day of the week?
INSTRUCTION: Apply the Pigeonhole Principle to solve the problem:

6. Show than if 6 integers are selected from

S={1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10} there must
be 2 integers whose sum is 11. (3pts)
INSTRUCTION: Apply the Pigeonhole Principle to solve the problem. Provide an
illustration

7. A school library has the following collection

of book.
Fiction
Comic
Science
Each student is allowed to borrow 2 books.
How many students must there be in order
to have at least two students borrowing the
same books? (2pts)