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I have to find the number of solutions for: $$x_1 + x_2 + x_3 + x_4 = 42$$ when given: $$ (I) 12 <= x_1 <=13 $$ $$ (II) 3 <= x_2 <= 6 $$ $$ (III) 11 <= x_3 <= 18 $$ $$ (IV) 6 <= x_4 <= 10 $$

What I did so far, is define: $$ y_1 = x_1 - 12 $$ $$ y_2 = x_2 - 3 $$ $$ y_3 = x_3 - 11 $$ $$ y_4 = x_4 - 6 $$

Thus we get: $$ y_1 + y_2 + y_3 + y_4 = 10 $$ where $$ 0 <= y_1 <= 1 $$ $$ 0 <= y_2 <= 3 $$ $$ 0 <= y_3 <= 7 $$ $$ 0 <= y_4 <= 4 $$

now I defined: $\text{S = all solutions to}$ $y_1 + y_2 + y_3 + y_4 = 20$ $\text{where all}$ $y_i >=0$ $\text{without the upper limitation}$

and I know I have to subtract the rest of the cases, when $y_1 is >1$ and $y_2 is >3$ etc... but how do I count all those side cases that I should subtract?

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    $\begingroup$ Note that you can use "\leq" for "<=" or "\geq" for ">=". $\endgroup$
    – Thomas
    Commented Apr 9, 2013 at 5:36
  • $\begingroup$ Are the $x_i$ integral? $\endgroup$
    – hjpotter92
    Commented Apr 9, 2013 at 5:40
  • $\begingroup$ An integer*, yes. $\endgroup$
    – TheNotMe
    Commented Apr 9, 2013 at 5:42

1 Answer 1

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For the newer information on question, since $x_i$ are integral(which is same as saying that they are integers):

The answer will be coefficient of $x^{10}$ in the following expansion:

$$ \begin{align} f(x) &= (x^0 + x^1)(x^0 + x^1 + x^2 + x^3)(x^0 + x^1 + x^2 + x^3 + x^4 + x^5 + x^6 + x^7)(x^0 + x^1 + x^2 + x^3 + x^4) \\ &= (1 + x)(1 + x + x^2 + x^3)(1 + x + x^2 + x^3 + x^4)(1 + x + x^2 + x^3 + x^4 + x^5 + x^6 + x^7) \end{align} $$

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  • $\begingroup$ im sorry. original is =42. my mistake $\endgroup$
    – TheNotMe
    Commented Apr 9, 2013 at 5:38
  • $\begingroup$ What if I give y1 "2" because I know it is at least 2, then calculate A1 (the number of solutions when y1 > 1) and etc? would that solve it and give me the size of each Ai? $\endgroup$
    – TheNotMe
    Commented Apr 9, 2013 at 18:14
  • $\begingroup$ you may have interests in this too: math.stackexchange.com/questions/751167/… $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 12, 2014 at 22:38

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