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All Combos 3 (Posted on 2024-05-14) Difficulty: 3 of 5
A positive integer N contains each 2-digit combination exactly once:
00, 01, ..., 99.

(A) What is the smallest number of digits N could have?
(B) What is the largest number of digits N could have?
(C) What is the smallest possible value of N?
(D) What is the largest possible value of N?

(no leading zeros)

No Solution Yet Submitted by Larry    
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re: Parts A and B (spoiler) & small example | Comment 3 of 5 |
(In reply to Parts A and B (spoiler) by Steve Herman)

Consider a smaller problem where the only digits are 0,1,2:
1001120221 would be such a number.  It has 10 digits.
There are 3^2 2-digit combinations of 0,1,2
So for A&B, such a number should have 10^2 + 1 or 101 digits.

I believe such numbers must exist using a graph theory argument:
Consider a graph with 10 nodes, one for each digit. Each node/digit connects to every other node with 2 pathways.  Each node also has one path connecting to itself.  Each node has an even number of connections.  So a circuit that covers every path exactly once ought to be possible.  (But I am uncertain if this is all that is necessary to prove it exists.)  

If true, a few observations follow:
- the path seems like it must start and stop at the same node
- each node will be touched 10 times except for the first/last node which is visited 11 times.
In the small example above, there are four 1s, three 0s, three 2s.  Also the number begins and ends with the same digit.

  Posted by Larry on 2024-05-15 09:39:40
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