[Math] A book has a few pages on which page numbers are written. Someone has torn one page out of it and now average of all page numbers is $\frac{105}{4}$

ceiling-and-floor-functionsnumber theorysummation

I couldn't relate this question to any of the topics specifically , I found this in a miscellaneous math problems book(non-calculus) .
Here's how it goes,
A book has a few pages on which page numbers are written. Someone has torn one page out of it and now average of all page numbers is $\frac{105}{4}$. Answer the following:

(i) If the total numbers of pages in book is n then find the value of

$$\sum_{r=1}^{10} \biggl\lfloor{\frac{n+r}{r+1}}\biggr\rfloor\,.$$

OPTIONS:
(A)100 (B)107 (C)105 (D)82

(ii) If the line $x+y=\bigl\lfloor\frac{n}{3}\bigr\rfloor$ is drawn ,then the total number of points with integral co-ordinates enclosed within the region bounded by $x=0,y=0$ and $x+y=\bigl\lfloor\frac{n}{3}\bigr\rfloor$ is —–?

(A)105 (B)153 (C)59 (D)78

STATUS: No clue how to start.

Any help is welcome.

Best Answer

OK, so here is a solution to (i) in case we know that when a page is torn out and odd and the following even page number is removed.

Given the book has $n$ pages the sum of the page numbers will be $$ T_n=1+2+...+n=\frac{n(n+1)}{2} $$ known as the $n$'th Triangular Number. So assume that page numbers $x$ and $x+1$ have been torn out where $x$ is odd. Then we can write $$ \frac{105}{4}=\tfrac{1}{n-2}\left(T_n-(2x+1)\right) $$ Plugging in the formula for $T_n$ from above and solving for $x$ then yields $$ x=\frac{1}{4}n^2-\frac{103}{8}n+\frac{103}{4} $$ which is a quadratic expression in $n$ with zeros $n=\frac{103\pm\sqrt{8961}}{4}$ which approximately is $n=2.08$ and $n=49.42$. On the other hand it is obvious that $x<n$ which then in turn yields a quadratic inequality in $n$ that can be solved to see that $n<\frac{111+\sqrt{10673}}{4}\approx 53.58$.

Having a slightly closer look at the expression for $x$ one realizes that $n-2$ must be divisible by $8$ for $x$ to be an integer. So unless we take $n=2$ (which actually works) we must have $49.42<n=50<53.58$ for $n$ to be an integer satisfying all requirements in that interval. Plugging $n=50$ into the expression for $x$ then yields $x=7,x+1=8$, and you can check as I did in the comments that the average of the remaining pages is really $\frac{105}{4}$. With $n=50$ one gets $$ \sum_{i=1}^{10}\left\lfloor\frac{50+r}{r+1}\right\rfloor=105 $$ So option (C) answers the first question correctly.

Part (ii)

Still using $n=50$ we get $\lfloor\frac{50}{3}\rfloor=16$ so that the line is $x+y=16$ or $y=16-x$. Together with the axes $y=0$ and $x=0$ this encloses a triangle with $17$ lattice points on the line $y=16-x$ since you can start from $(0,16)$ and move down right step-by-step to 'visit' 17 lattice points before you hit the x-axis. Similarly you hit $16$ lattice points following the same procedure from $(0,15)$. With this we get the answer to (ii) which is: $$ T_{17}=17+16+...+1=\frac{17\cdot 18}{2}=153 $$ So option (B) answers the second question correctly.

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