ManualCountingAndCasework IntegerSolution MathCounts Intermediate
2013


Problem - 1850

How many collections of six positive, odd integers have a sum of $18$? Note that $1 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 3 + 9$ and $9 + 1 + 3 + 1 + 3 + 1$ are considered to be the same collection.


Answer     $11$

Let the six odd positive integers be $2x_1+1$, $2x_2+1$, $\cdots$, $2x_6+1$ where $x_i$ are non-negative integers. The fact that their sum is $18$ implies $$x_1+x_2+x_3+x_4+x_5+x_6=6$$

However, because sequence of $x_i$ does not matter per the problem's description, this is equivalent to putting $6$ indistiguishable balls into $6$ indistguishable boxes, empty box is permitted. As the number is small, we can manually list all the possible cases (in fact, we can also do the same without first simplifying):

  • When the largest element is $6$:
    • $\{0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 6\}$ (we always order the numbers ascendingly)
  • When the largest element is $5$
    • $\{0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 5\}$
  • When the largest element is $4$
    • $\{0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 4\}$
    • $\{0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 4\}$
  • When the largest element is $3$
    • $\{0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 3\}$
    • $\{0, 0, 0, 1, 2, 3\}$
    • $\{0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 3\}$
  • When the largest element is $2$
    • $\{0, 0, 0, 2, 2, 2\}$
    • $\{0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 2\}$
    • $\{0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2\}$
  • When the largest element is $1$
    • $\{1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1\}$

Hence, the final answer is $\boxed{11}$.

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