Gia has 6 identical cookies. Starting today, she plans to eat at least 1 cookie each day until none are left. If the number of cookies she eats each day has to be a whole number, how many different ways can Gia distribute her cookies across the days?
Question
Gia has 6 identical cookies. Starting today, she plans to eat at least 1 cookie each day until none are left. If the number of cookies she eats each day has to be a whole number, how many different ways can Gia distribute her cookies across the days?
Solution
To solve this problem, we can use the concept of "stars and bars" from combinatorics.
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Imagine the 6 cookies (stars) lined up.
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We need to distribute these cookies over a number of days (bars).
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Since Gia can eat at least 1 cookie a day, we can start by giving her 1 cookie for each day. The minimum number of days is therefore 6 (since she has 6 cookies).
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Now, we need to distribute the remaining cookies (0 in this case) over the 6 days.
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The number of ways to do this is given by the formula for combinations: C(n + k - 1, k - 1), where n is the number of identical items (cookies) and k is the number of distinct groups (days).
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Substituting the values, we get C(0 + 6 - 1, 6 - 1) = C(5, 5) = 1.
So, there is only 1 way for Gia to distribute her cookies across the days if she eats at least 1 cookie each day.
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