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49th Mathematical Olympiad in Ukraine

Ukraine counting and probability

Problem

Consider the set and all of its four-element subsets. Denote by the number of these subsets such that the product of their elements is greater than and by the number of these subsets such that the product of their elements is smaller than . Which number is bigger - or ?
Solution
Let be a four-element subset of such that . Then the subset is also a four-element subset of because all of its elements are distinct and belong to and . It follows that . But also we have the subset which has product of elements and doesn't have any corresponding pair with product of elements less than . Thus .
Final answer
n > m

Techniques

Counting two waysRecursion, bijection