Question

Find the number of ways $66$ identical coins can be separated into three nonempty piles so that there are fewer coins in the first pile than in the second pile and fewer coins in the second pile than in the third pile.

答案

Solution:

The ordered triples $(a, b, c)$ of positive integers with $a + b + c = 66$ number $\binom{65}{2} = 2080.$ Exactly one of them has all three values equal, namely $(22, 22, 22).$ Triples with exactly two values equal come from $2a + c = 66$ with $c \ne a:$ here $a$ can be $1$ through $32$ except $22,$ giving $31$ multisets, each arrangeable in $3$ ways, so $93$ ordered triples.

Hence $2080 - 1 - 93 = 1986$ ordered triples have three distinct values, and each unordered choice $a \lt b \lt c$ is counted $6$ times. The number of valid separations is $\frac{1986}{6} = 331.$

2021 AIME I Problem 4

Solution:

Problem 4 in Other Years