The Pigeonhole Principle

(A priceless tool)

The book Mathematical Circles: Russian Experience describes the

definition of pigeonhole principle the best .

Definition of Pigeonhole Principle by the Mathematical Circles book : Students who

have never heard of Pigeonhole principle may think it is a joke ;
If we must put pigeons in holes then some pigeon hole must contain two or
more pigeons.

Notice how vague this sounds, Nevertheless it is one of the most

important tools in the realm of Olympiad Geometry. Also its applications
are immense in many fields of Math.
Of course some of the trivial applications of pigeonhole principle are like
the following problem:
Q 0.) A bag contains beads of two colors , black and white. What is the
smallest number of beads which may be drawn from the bag, without
looking, so that among these beads there are two of the same color ?
So friends, lets wage a war against the problems and blast them away by
the method of pigeonhole principle (This word is getting big, let’s call it
PHP!!!).
Q 1.) If a plane is colored with two colors, there are two points of the same color exactly
one mile apart.
 This is an elementary problem with an elementary but intuitive solution.
Consider an equilateral triangle with side of distance 1 mile. There are
three sides of a triangle, but the plane is colored in only two colors. So by
PHP there are two vertices of the equilateral triangle with same color.

This problem comes under the topic of the Chromatic Number of the
Plane and the pigeonhole principle plays a very important part in this
topic.
Next, we come across a problem which looks like a Number Theory
problem, but is disguised and the application of PHP.

Q .2) Suppose 51 numbers are chosen from 1,2,3 … 100. Show that there are two
numbers which do not have a common prime divisor.

The solution is an elegant one …

Let us consider the 50 pairs of consecutive numbers (1,2), (3,4), ...,
(99,100). Since 51 numbers are chosen, the pigeonhole principle tells us
that there will be a pair among them. Now if a prime number p
divides k+1 and k, then p will divide , which is a
contradiction. So, k and k+1 have no common prime divisor.
Do observe that the pigeon hole principle can be further generalized as
follows:-
 “If you have p pigeons and h holes. then at least one of the holes contains
at least ⌈ ⌉ pigeons.”

Lets see some more problems where PHP wrecks a combinatorial

geometry question.

Q 3.) (A. Soifer ) Prove that among any nine points inside or on the boundary of a
triangle of area 1, there are three points that form a triangle of area not exceeding
1/4.

For this solution, we partition our given triangle into four congruent
triangles as follows.

And now we use a trivial result:-

The midlines partition the given triangle into four congruent triangles of
area .
These congruent triangles are our pigeonholes, and the given points
are our pigeons. Now nine pigeons are sitting in four pigeonholes.
Since , by generalized PHP there is at least one pigeonhole
containing atleast three pigeons.

Now I introduce you to the infinite PHP .

“ (Infinite pigeonhole principle) :- Given an infinite set of objects, if they

are arranged in a finite number of places, there is at least one place with
an infinite number of objects.”
 This also may seem trivial to you but this too has some mind blowing
applications.
Q 4.) A 100×100
A 100×100 boardintoisunit
board is divided divided
squares. into unit
In every squares.
square there is anIn every
arrow square
that points thereleftis an
up, down,
or right.
arrow thatThepoints
board square is surrounded
up, down, left byora wall, except
right. Thefor the right side
board of the top
square is right corner
surrounded by a
square. An insect is placed in one of the squares. Each second, the insect moves one unit in the direction
wall,ofexcept
the arrowforin itsthe right
square. Whenside
the of themoves,
insect top the
right corner
arrow square.
of the square An
it was insect
in moves 90 is placed in
degrees
oneclockwise.
of the If the indicated movement cannot be done, the insect does not move that second, but the
squares. Each second, the insect moves one unit in the direction of the
arrow in its squares does move. Is it possible that the insect never leaves the board?
arrow in its square. When the insect moves, the arrow of the square it was in
moves 90 degrees clockwise. If the indicated movement cannot be done, the
insect does not move that second, but the arrow in its squares does move. Is it
possible that the insect never leaves the board?

The proof of this seemingly hard problem becomes easy by the

application of infinite PHP.
We are going to prove that regardless of how the arrows are or where the
insect is placed, it always leaves the board. Suppose this is not true, i.e.,
the insect is trapped. In this case, the insect makes an infinite number of
steps in the board. Since there are only squares, by the infinite
pigeonhole principle, there is a square that is visited an infinite number of
times. Each time the insect goes through this square, the arrow in there
moves. Thus, the insect was also an infinite number of times in each of
the neighboring squares. By repeating this argument, the insect also visited
an infinite number of times each of the neighbors of those squares. In this
way we conclude that the insect visited an infinite number of times each
square in the board, in particular the top right corner. This is impossible,
because when that arrow points to the right the insect leaves the board.
So here are some problems to satisfy your dose of PHP .
WARNING! – The problems are not in increasing order of difficulty.

Q 1.)Given a graph on vertices with its edges colored in two colors, show that you
can find two monochromatic triangles.
Q 2.) (IrMO 1997) Let be a subset of containing more
than elements. Prove that either contains a power of or there exist two
distinct elements such that is a power of

Q 3.) (A. Soifer and S. Slobodnik ) Forty-one rooks are placed on a 10 10

chessboard. Prove that you can choose five of them that do not attack each other.
(We say that one rook attacks another if they are in the same row or column of the
chessboard.)

Q 4.) (Tournament of towns 1985) A class of 32 students is organized in 33 teams.

Every team consists of three students and there are no identical teams. Show that
there are two teams with exactly one common student.

Q 5.) (IMO 1972) Prove that from a set of ten distinct two-digit numbers (in the
decimal system), it is possible to select two disjoint subsets whose members have the
same sum.

Q 6.) Color the plane in three colors. Prove that there are two points of the same
color one unit apart.

Q 7.) (Russia 1972) Show that if we are given 50 segments in a line, then there are 8
of them which are pairwise disjoint or 8 of them with a common point.