2n points on a circle in two different colors. Prove that pairwise distances of same-color points are the same

combinatoricsgraph theorynumber theory

There are $2n$ points on a circle. The distance (defined by shortest distance you would take to walk from one point to another along the circle) between adjacent points are the same. $n$ points are black and $n$ points are white.

Now we compute the pairwise distances between all the black points and pairwise distances between all the white points. Prove they have the same collection ( with multiplicities) of pairwise distances.

It looks like there has to be a simple trick to map from one group of points to the other through some reflection principle. But I haven't figured out a way…

Best Answer

consider the set of all pairwise distance of black, if distance $j$ is not in it, then $x \mapsto x+j$ is a bijection between black and white.

If we take multiplicity into consideration, the multiplicity of black $j$ is number of points that itself is black and maps to black, it is the same as # of points that is white and maps to white.