1991 AIME Problems/Problem 13
Problem
A drawer contains a mixture of red socks and blue socks, at most 1991 in all. It so happens that, when two socks are selected randomly without replacement, there is a probability of exactly 
that both are red or both are blue. What is the largest possible number of red socks in the drawer that is consistent with this data?
Solution
Let 
and 
denote the number of red and blue socks, respectively. Also, let 
. The probability 
that when two socks are drawn without replacement, both are red or both are blue is given by
Solving the resulting quadratic equation 
, for in terms of 
, one obtains that
Now, since and are positive integers, it must be the case that 
, with 
. Hence, 
would correspond to the general solution. For the given case, 
and so one easily finds that 
, 
and, thus, 
are the largest possible integers satisfying the problem conditions.
In summary, the solution is that the maximum number of red socks is .
See also
| 1991 AIME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
| Preceded by Problem 12 |
Followed by Problem 14 | |
| 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 | ||
| All AIME Problems and Solutions | ||
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