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Bulgaria

Bulgaria counting and probability

Problem

Let . Find the number of all sequences of pairwise different points in the plane with non-negative integer first coordinates and second coordinates or , such that and for .
Solution
Denote by the number of the sequences from the problem. Define the number in a similar way but replacing the given equality by call the respective sequences right and the other sequences wrong. It is not difficult to see that , and (to any right sequence associate if , and otherwise). It follows that is -th Fibonacci number . We associate to any wrong sequence () the right sequence for which , . It is clear that ; we shall call such sequences super right. Note that the number of the super right sequences of length is equal to (this remains true for ). There is an obvious bijection between the set of the wrong sequences of length and the set of the super right sequences with lengths . It follows by (2) and (1) that
Final answer
c_n = 2 f_{n+1} - \varepsilon_n = \frac{2}{\sqrt{5}}\big(q^{n+1} - (1 - q)^{n+1}\big) - \varepsilon_n, where f_k is the Fibonacci sequence with f_1 = f_2 = 1, q = (1 + \sqrt{5})/2, and \varepsilon_n = (1 + (-1)^n)/2.

Techniques

Recursion, bijectionCounting two waysRecurrence relations