Wednesday, 8 October 2014

combinatorics - Show $sum_{k=0}^{m} binom{n-k}{m-k}=binom{n+1}{m}$




My question is:




show $$\sum_{k=0}^{m} \binom{n-k}{m-k}=\binom{n+1}{m}$$
$$n\geq m\geq 1$$
I tried to do this via induction and failed. there has to be another way of doing this.



We could either explain combinatorically that we are counting the same thing in 2 different ways, in this sense, we are counting the number of ways to choose $m$ elements from a set with $n+1$ elements.



Or we could try like me to prove it algebraically, both ways are valid...I'd like some help, or a push in the right direction.


Answer



Hint: The right side counts the number of ways to pick $m$ elements out of $n+1$.




For the left: partition the $m$-element subsets of $n+1$ based on the highest element that is NOT included in the subset.


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