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Mongolian National Mathematical Olympiad

Mongolia counting and probability

Problem

Let be subsets with and elements. Show that there is an integer such that the set of residues has at least 730 elements.
Solution
First note that for any finite family of finite sets , we have Indeed, if is contained in exactly of the sets , then it is counted times in the first sum and times in the second sum, and for any integer .

Let . For and , let Clearly, for and , we have . Moreover, for , we have using Kronecker's delta function notation. Summing over all , we get Now let . Then and averaging over all , we get

It follows that there is such that .

Techniques

Inclusion-exclusionCounting two waysInverses mod n