English

On the number of combinations without certain separations

Combinatorics 2008-05-12 v1

Abstract

In this paper we enumerate the number of ways of selecting kk objects from nn objects arrayed in a line such that no two selected ones are separated by m1,2m1,...,pm1m-1,2m-1,...,pm-1 objects and provide three different formulas when m,p1m,p\geq 1 and npm(k1)n\geq pm(k-1). Also, we prove that the number of ways of selecting kk objects from nn objects arrayed in a circle such that no two selected ones are separated by m1,2m1,...,pm1m-1,2m-1,...,pm-1 objects is given by nnpk(npkk)\frac{n}{n-pk}\binom{n-pk}{k}, where m,p1m,p\geq 1 and nmpk+1n\geq mpk+1.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0805.1276,
  title  = {On the number of combinations without certain separations},
  author = {Toufik Mansour and Yidong Sun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0805.1276},
  year   = {2008}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:38:49.427Z