- #1
sam400
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<<Mentor note: Missing template due to originally being posted in other forum.>>
So, my professor gave a problem which stated:
Given a 15 x 20 rectangle, prove that if 26 points are chosen, at least one pair will be at most five units away.
What I said was to split the rectangle into 12 5x5 squares. Then, at least 1 square will have at least 3 points, since if each of them had 2 points, it would only add up to 24. from there, I went on to say that the longest distance between 2 points in one of the smaller squares is 5 root 2 units. But since one of them will have a third point, the next longest distance possible for that point is 5 units, which is the length of one side.
My professor's explanation was much more eloquent, since he just divided the rectangle into 25 3 x 4 rectangles, then by pigeonhole principle, one of the rectangles will have two points, and the diagonal length will be 5.
While his explanation is much smoother than mine, he said my explanation was entirely wrong as well, but I forgot to ask him why that is. I could understand it being bad since it's so much longer, but I'm not sure what else there is.
So, my professor gave a problem which stated:
Given a 15 x 20 rectangle, prove that if 26 points are chosen, at least one pair will be at most five units away.
What I said was to split the rectangle into 12 5x5 squares. Then, at least 1 square will have at least 3 points, since if each of them had 2 points, it would only add up to 24. from there, I went on to say that the longest distance between 2 points in one of the smaller squares is 5 root 2 units. But since one of them will have a third point, the next longest distance possible for that point is 5 units, which is the length of one side.
My professor's explanation was much more eloquent, since he just divided the rectangle into 25 3 x 4 rectangles, then by pigeonhole principle, one of the rectangles will have two points, and the diagonal length will be 5.
While his explanation is much smoother than mine, he said my explanation was entirely wrong as well, but I forgot to ask him why that is. I could understand it being bad since it's so much longer, but I'm not sure what else there is.
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