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Theoretical Comp. Sci. » Complexity

Subset-sums equality (pigeonhole version) ★★★

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Problem   Let $ a_1,a_2,\ldots,a_n $ be natural numbers with $ \sum_{i=1}^n a_i < 2^n - 1 $. It follows from the pigeon-hole principle that there exist distinct subsets $ I,J \subseteq \{1,\ldots,n\} $ with $ \sum_{i \in I} a_i = \sum_{j \in J} a_j $. Is it possible to find such a pair $ I,J $ in polynomial time?

Keywords: polynomial algorithm; search problem

Posted by mdevos
updated July 16th, 2007
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