Tell me more ×
Mathematics Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people studying math at any level and professionals in related fields. It's 100% free, no registration required.

There are $N$ boxes. I want to distribute $(j\cdot D)$ balls into $N$ boxes, where $j$ and $D$ are arbitrary natural numbers.

However, more than $(D-1)$ balls is not allowed to be put in each box. That is, $(D-1)$ balls is maximum number of balls that we are able to put in each box. Empty box is allowed when I distribute the balls.

So... how many possibility of distributing $(j\cdot D)$ balls into $N$ boxes? I'm stuck on this problem.

share|improve this question
1  
are the balls numbered, or are we just interested in the number of balls in each box? That is is $\boxed{123}\boxed{45}\boxed{6}$ the same as $\boxed{246}\boxed{13}\boxed{5}$? – robjohn Jan 14 at 9:37

2 Answers

First, recall the soluction of the simpler problem without the maximum restriction (the answer for that is $N + jD -1 \choose N$). This can be obtained by noting that for one box there is always only one configuration (put all the balls in the box) which I denote $S_{1, k} = 1$. For two boxes, if you put $m$ balls in the first box, the number of balls in the second one is fixed and so the answer is $N+1$, so this can be regarded as a sum over the number of solutions for one box. In general for $N$ boxes you obtain the answer as an $N$-fold convolution of the constant function $S_{1,k}$. In particular, for all $N$ the answer is a polynomial in $k$.

For your problem, the solution is similar. I'll denote by $T^D_{N, k}$ the number of ways of putting $k$ balls into $N$ boxes with $D - 1$ maximum of balls in one box. Then $T^D_{1, k} = 1_{k < D}$ (i.e. 1 when $k$ is less than $D$). Now, observe that $T^D_{N,k} = S_{N,k}$ when $k < D$ (since in this range the maximum condition does not apply). Therefore, the $T^D_{N,k}$ for $N$ fixed looks again like a polynomial of degree $N-1$. But at $k=jD$ there is a discontinuity in the $(N-1)^{st}$ derivative corresponding to the maximum being hit. The graph looks like this for $D=6$:

enter image description here

So, what actually happens here is that we are summing the i.i.d random variables with uniform distribution. As a result, for $N \to \infty$ this approaches a normal distribution by the central limit theorem.

share|improve this answer
I just realized that you only want the answer for $k = jD$, i.e. at the points of discontinuity. This is a simpler question than the one for which I posted the answer, so a closed-form solution might be possible. I'll leave my answer here for the time being anyway though. – Marek Jan 14 at 10:28

Exists$$\sum_{\stackrel{ c_{0}+c_{1}+...+c_{ N-1}=jD}{0\leq c_{i}\leq D-1,i=0,1,..,N-1}} \frac {(jD)!}{c_{0}!c_{1}!...c_{N-1}!}$$ possibility of distributing $(j\cdot D)$ distinct balls into $N$ boxes, if boxes are ordered and there exists some empty boxes. If empty boxes not allowed then we use $$\sum_{\stackrel{ c_{0}+c_{1}+...+c_{ N-1}=jD}{1\leq c_{i}\leq D-1,i=0,1,..,N-1}} \frac {(jD)!}{c_{0}!c_{1}!...c_{N-1}!}$$

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.