How many ways we can choose an increasing and a strictly increasing subsequence of length k from the

Chaz Blair

Chaz Blair

Answered question

2022-05-31

How many ways we can choose an increasing and a strictly increasing subsequence of length k from the first n natural numbers?
Let S := { 1 n } .. We want to choose
i) increasing subsequences of S length k n .. and
ii) strictly increasing subsequences of S length k n ..
How many ways can we choose them in i) and ii)? I'm a bit confused where even to start, but detailed answers will be appreciated!

Answer & Explanation

stacan6t

stacan6t

Beginner2022-06-01Added 13 answers

Step 1
How many increasing subsequences of length k n can be formed using the elements of S := { 1 , 2 , 3 , , n } ?
A particular subsequence is determined by how many times each element in S appears. For instance, if S = { 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 } and k = 6, then if 3 appears once, 6 appears twice, and 9 appears three times, the resulting subsequence must be (3,6,6,9,9,9) since the elements of the subsequence must appear in increasing order.
Hence, if we let xi represent the number of times the number i appears in the subsequence, the number of ways a subsequence of length k n can be formed from S is the number of solutions of the equation x 1 + x 2 + x 3 + + x n = k in the nonnegative integers.
Step 2
How many strictly increasing subsequences of length k n can be formed using the elements of S = { 1 , 2 , 3 , , n }?
A particular subsequence is determined by which k elements appear in the subsequence since they must appear in strictly increasing order. For instance, if S = { 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 }, and k = 6, then if we select the numbers 2,3,4,5,7,8, the resulting subsequence must be (2,3,4,5,7,8). Hence, the number of strictly increasing subsequences of length k is the number of ways we can select k elements from a set with n elements.
Alaina Marshall

Alaina Marshall

Beginner2022-06-02Added 5 answers

Step 1
For the first part, any choices made using Theorem 1 of stars and bars can always be arranged in ascending order, thus ( n 1 k 1 ) .
Step 2
Step 2
For the second part, any distinct choices of k can always be arranged in strictly ascending order, thus ( n k ) .

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