Practice (73)

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In the following $5\times 4\times 3$ grid, how many shortest routes are there from point $A$ to point $B$ on its surface?


There are $5$ red balls and $4$ green balls in a bag. One ball is retrieved a time until all the balls are taken out. How many possible ways are there such that all the red balls are taken out before all the green balls are taken out?


There are $5$ red balls, $4$ green balls and $3$ yellow balls in a bag. One ball is retrieved a time until all the balls are taken out. What is the probability that all the red balls are retrieved before all the green or yellow balls are retrieved?


Find the number of ordered quadruples of integer $(a, b, c, d)$ satisfying $1\le a < b < c < d \le 10$.


How many different strings of length $10$ which contains only letter $A$ or $B$ contains no two consecutive $A$s are there?


Let $N$ be the number of possible ways to pick up two adjacent squares in a $(n\times m)$ grid. Find $N$.


Show that $$\frac{1}{(1-x)^n}=\sum_{k=0}^{\infty}\binom{n-1+k}{n-1}x^k$$


Let $f(x)$ be the generating function for $a_0$, $a_1$, $a_2$, $\cdots$. Find the generating function for $$a_0, a_0 + a_1, a_0+a_1+a_2, \cdots$$


Show that $$\sqrt{1+x}=1+\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}\frac{(-1)^{n-1}}{n\cdot 2^{2n-1}}\binom{2n-2}{n-1}x^n$$


Show that $$\frac{1}{\sqrt{1-4x}}=\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}\binom{2n}{n}x^n$$


Let $N$ be the value of the following expression. $$\sum_{k=0}^{n-1}\left(\binom{n}{0}+\binom{n}{1}+\cdots+\binom{n}{k}\right)\left(\binom{n}{k+1}+\binom{n}{k+2}+\cdots+\binom{n}{n}\right)$$

Show $$N=\frac{n}{2}\binom{2n}{n}$$


For every integer $n$ from $0$ to $6$, we have $3$ identical weights with weight $2^n$ grams. How many total ways are there to form a total weight of $263$ grams using only these weights?


How many different ways are there to make a payment of $n$ dollars using any number of $\$1$ and $\$2$ bills?


How many $4$-digit integers are there whose sum of all digits equals $12$?


There are $10$ red, $10$ blue, and $10$ white balls. How many different ways are there to retrieve $16$ balls with all the three colors present.


Let $\alpha(n)$ be the number of ways to write a positive integer $n$ as the sum of $1$s and $2$s. Let $\beta(n)$ be the number of ways to write $n$ as a sum of several integers greater than $1$. Different orders are treated as different. Prove $\alpha(n)=\beta(n+2)$.


A deck of poker has three different colors each of which contains $10$ cards numbered from $1$ to $10$, respectively. In addition, there are two jokers both of which are numbered as $0$. A card with number $k$ is valued as $2^k$ points. How many different ways are there to draw several cards from this deck so that their total value equals $2004$?


Let $n$ be a positive integer. Find the number $a_n$ of polynomials $f(x)$ with coefficients in $\{0, 1, 2, 3\}$ such that $f(2)=n$.


Let $a_0$, $a_1$, $a_2$, $\cdots$ be an increasing sequence of non-negative integers such that every non-negative integer can be expressed uniquely in the form of $(a_i + 2a_j+4a_k)$ where $i$, $j$, and $k$ are not necessarily distinct. Determine $a_{1998}$.


Let $\mathbb{N}$ be the set containing all positive integers. Is it possible to partition $\mathbb{N}$ to more than one but still a finite number of arithmetic sequences with no two having the same common difference?


Let $p$ be an odd prime number. Find the number of subsets $\mathbb{A}$ of the set $\{1, 2, \cdots, 2p\}$ such that $\mathbb{A}$ has exactly $p$ elements and the sum of all elements in $\mathbb{A}$ is divisible by $p$.


Let $a$, $b$, $p$, and $q$ be fixed positive integers. If an $a\times b$ grid can be tiled using some $1\times p$ and $q\times 1$ pieces, show that either $a$ is divisible by $p$ or $b$ is divisible by $q$. Here, a $1\times k$ and $k\times 1$ grids are treated as different.


Show that $$\frac{1}{1-ax}=\sum_{k=0}^{\infty}(ax)^n$$

Show that $$\frac{1}{1-x}=1+x+x^2+x^3+x^4 + \cdots$$


Show that $$\frac{1}{1+x}=\sum_{k=0}^{\infty}(-1)^nx^n$$