1998 AIME Problems/Problem 4

Problem

Nine tiles are numbered respectively. Each of three players randomly selects and keeps three of the tiles, and sums those three values. The probability that all three players obtain an odd sum is where and are relatively prime positive integers. Find

Solution

In order for a player to have an odd sum, he must have an odd number of odd tiles: that is, he can either have three odd tiles, or two even tiles and an odd tile. Thus, since there are odd tiles and even tiles, the only possibility is that one player gets odd tiles and the other two players get even tiles and odd tile. We count the number of ways this can happen. (We will count assuming that it matters in what order the people pick the tiles; the final answer is the same if we assume the opposite, that order doesn't matter.)

choices for the tiles that he gets. The other two odd tiles can be distributed to the other two players in ways, and the even tiles can be distributed between them in ways. This gives us a total of possibilities in which all three people get odd sums.

In order to calculate the probability, we need to know the total number of possible distributions for the tiles. The first player needs three tiles which we can give him in ways, and the second player needs three of the remaining six, which we can give him in ways. Finally, the third player will simply take the remaining tiles in way. So, there are ways total to distribute the tiles.

We must multiply the probability by 3, since any of the 3 players can have the 3 odd tiles.Thus, the total probability is so the answer is .

Solution 2

Let stand for an odd number and an even. Therefore, one person must pick , the other person must pick and the last person must pick . Since any permutation of the order of who is picking or change in the order of the even numbers (e.g. instead of ) doesn't change the probability, we just need to multiply the probability of one case by as there are 27 such cases (by cases I mean ordered triples of ordered multisets such that one of them has 3 's and the other two have two 's and an in them, respectively.) . Let's do the case , , . . We now multiply by 27 to get - whatRthose

Solution 3

For this problem, let's think about parity. There are odd numbers from and there are four even numbers from . Since this problem is asking for the probability that the each player gets an odd sum, we also have to calculate the total numeber of ways.

In this case, there are only two ways to get an odd sum. Either have the sequence or where the letters and stand for odd and even respectively.

Since we constrained to only odds, the only way to do the pairing is There are of couse three ways to choose who gets the three odds.

Once we have chosen who has gotten the three odds, we can actually reorder the sequence like this: Now since we are choosing in groups, we can ignor order of these terms.

For the first , there are ways to choose which odd to use, and or ways to choose the evens.

Great, let's move on to the second . There are odds left, so there are ways choose the odds. Since there are only two even numbers, they have to go here, so there is only way to choose the evens.

The three odds will now fall in place. We can now multiply all the numbers since they are independent, and we have or .

Since this is a probability question, we have to ask ourselves how many ways are there to distribute the 9 tiles equally among 3 players.

Fortunately for us, this is not hard as the first player has options and the second player has . When we multiply these, we get . This is our denominator.

When we make the fraction, we have . When we simplify it, we have: We are asked to find the sum of the numerator and the denominator, so summing these, we have: -Pi_is_3.14

See also

The problems on this page are copyrighted by the Mathematical Association of America's American Mathematics Competitions.