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2020 Princeton University Math Competition
B6
B6
Part of
2020 Princeton University Math Competition
Problems
(1)
2020 PUMaC Combinatorics B6
Source:
1/1/2022
Billy the baker makes a bunch of loaves of bread every day, and sells them in bundles of size
1
,
2
1, 2
1
,
2
, or
3
3
3
. On one particular day, there are
375
375
375
orders,
125
125
125
for each bundle type. As such, Billy goes ahead and makes just enough loaves of bread to meet all the orders. Whenever Billy makes loaves, some get burned, and are not sellable. For nonnegative i less than or equal to the total number of loaves, the probability that exactly i loaves are sellable to customers is inversely proportional to
2
i
2^i
2
i
(otherwise, it’s
0
0
0
). Once he makes the loaves, he distributes out all of the sellable loaves of bread to some subset of these customers (each of whom will only accept their desired bundle of bread), without worrying about the order in which he gives them out. If the expected number of ways Billy can distribute the bread is of the form
a
b
2
c
−
1
\frac{a^b}{2^c-1}
2
c
−
1
a
b
, find
a
+
b
+
c
a + b + c
a
+
b
+
c
.
combinatorics