Tickle your brain with fun and tough comb question.

On second thoughts I think the number should be somewhere around the 999(1/6) = 167 mark.

In my previous post I counted some possible sums an extra 5 times. For example:

103
130
301
310
013
031

That will go for most of the numbers where all the 3-digits are different. Now, even if I add a few extra for sets like:

001
010
100

I still don't see a way to get to the 500 number zone.

I like this problem, pretty interesting!

Yeah! great to see someone try.... I was starting to get discouraged... +1 to you.
Now,your reasoning has a flaw.. the question is not about the combinations of a three digit number but about the combinations where the sum of digits equals to another sum.
so
004 = 004
004 = 040
004 = 400
004 = 112
004 = 121
004 = 211
004 = 103
004 = 130
004 = 013
004 = 301
004 = 031
004 = 310
004 = 220
004 = 022
004 = 202

for 1 combination of a 3 digit number 004 we got 15 combinations where the sum's are equal.
Getting my idea? Now I'll say more, the answer cannot be A! Why? Because there is a thousand combinations for thee digit number ( I count 000) so, there'll be at least a thousand cases when sums are equal because the left side is the same as the right side (ex. 285 285)

PS. You really will have to think outside the box with this one. And remember my hint...

Thanks for the kudos! I appreciate it!

This problem is really taking the tickling part to a whole new level. Anyway, some more thoughts but still don't see a way to set it up:

We know the max value of each digit can be 9, so the total sum of X1+X2+X3 = 9+9+9 = 27. If we know for each increase in value from 1 to 27, how many ways it can be done then we have a resolution.

Now, I just wrote down the possible combos for the first 6, the number in the bracket is the total number of possibilities for that value, but do not see a pattern, and that's what's really bugging me:

1: 001, 010, 100 (3)
2: 002, 020, 200, 101, 110, 011 (6)
3: 003, 030, 300, 111, 102, 120, 201, 210, 012, 021 (10)
4: 004, 040, 400, 121, 112, 130, 103, 202, 220, 211, 301, 310, 031, 013, 022 (15)
5: 005, 050, 500, 104, 140, 203, 230, 302, 320, 401, 410, 014, 041, 023, 032 (15)
6: 006, 060, 600, 142, 124, 240, 204, 303, 330, 402, 420, 501, 510, 033 (14)

I like your thinking... you are following the same path I did when I tried to solve it first.
Now there is a pattern..but in a much larger scale... However it is not the way to solve the problem under 2 mins...
As I said after giving the answer choices it is not really about combinations anymore.

Now the problem is hard, so I'll give one more thought after which I'll be silent for some time to see if anyone tackles it. So here it is:

One thing you have to realize is. In a given problem it doesn't really matter in which order we add numbers. Stop. What did he say?
Yes it doesn't. So let's call the ticket were \(X_1+X_3+X_5=X_2+X_4+X_6\) an "Irish luck ticket".
Think about it for a minute and you'll see that the number of combination where \(X_1+X_2+X_3=X_4+X_5+X_6\) is the same to the number of combinations where \(X_1+X_3+X_5=X_2+X_4+X_6\). Now wrap your mind about it. The numbers themselves would be different ( 218 542 vs 251482 ) BUT the total number of combinations for both "lucky ticket" and "Irish luck ticket" would remain the same.

Now how does the Irish luck ticket help to solve the problem is up to you to figure out... Up from here it is very easy if you look on everything that I said.... Did you look through divisibility rules?

timetrader, I think you've managed to more than tickle

I am still working/thinking on the legitimate solution, but by working through illegitimate means I think the answer is b) 55,252 ??

I guess I have spent to much time thinking about it in trolley buses


Yes! What was your reasoning? (now I know that you didn't find the number (edit: and I was wrong)... it is overly complicated... but why did you think it is less than 152,525?)

Like I said, I do not have a proper (2 min) solution...still thinking...
However, I applied some heuristics and lots of good old brute force to calculate the answer.

WARNING: This is very very ugly solution and is certainly not recommended, but this is all I could do in about 2 hours I spent on this LOL
Apologies for the length of the post...

Alright let's start...man, this is gonna hurt

Solution:
The highest sum for a 3 digit number is 27 (9 + 9 + 9).
So, I started playing by listing the combinations for sum 1,2, and 3.

Sum = 1:
For the sum to be equal to 1, the 3 digits must be different combinations of 0,0,1

To find the number of combinations, we can see that we are arranging 0 and 1 in three slots, but there are 2 zeros.
Number of unique ways to arrange 3 items where 2 of the items are identical is: 3!/2! = 3 (Number of items!/number of identical items!)

So we have 3 unique combinations: 001, 010, 100
Now, we have added complexity of each uniques combination combining with any other combination on either side of a 6 digit number.
That is, 001 010 is different from 010 001.

So, let us list the combinations:
001 001 010 001 100 001
001 010 010 010 100 010
001 100 010 100 100 100

Arranging the 3 unique combinations in 2 (left/right) slots when each combination can also combine with itself (001 001) is 3^2= 9

Sum = 2
The digits that can be used to get sum of 2, are 002, 011

002 : 3!/2! = 3 (number of ways to arrange 3 items when 2 are identical)
011 : 3!/2! = 3 (number of ways to arrange 3 items when 2 are identical)

Total ways: 3+3 = 6

Accounting for left/right combinations: 6^2 = 36

Sum = 3
The digits that can be used to get sum of 3, are 003, 021, 111

003 : 3!/2! = 3
021 : 3! = 6 (no identical digits)
111 : 3!/3! = 1

Total ways: 3+6+1 = 10

Accounting for left/right combinations: 10^2 = 100

Wait a minute.....

Sum: 1 : Total Ways = 3
Sum: 2 : Total Ways = 6
Sum: 3 : Total Ways = 10

Ways(Sum: 1) = Ways(Sum: 0) + 2 = 3 [Ways(Sum: 0) = 3!/3! = 1 (only combination 000)]
Ways(Sum: 2) = Ways(Sum: 1) + 3 = 3 + 3 = 6
Ways(Sum: 3) = Ways(Sum: 2) + 4 = 4 + 4 = 10

Could it be, that the difference between the number of ways for consecutive sum, is one more than the difference between the previous two number of ways.

That is, Ways(Sum: x) = Ways(Sum: x-1) + [Ways(Sum:x-1) - Ways(Sum:x-2) + 1]

Ok let's try Sum:4
Ways(Sum: 4) = Ways(Sum: 3) + [Ways(Sum:3) - Ways(Sum:2) + 1]
Ways(Sum: 4) = = 10 + [10-6+1] = 15

Is it??...let's check...
Sum = 4
The digits that can be used to get sum of 4, are 004, 031, 022, 211

004 : 3!/2! = 3
031 : 3! = 6 (no identical digits)
022 : 3!/2! = 3
211 : 3!/2! = 3

Total ways: 6+3+3+3 = 15 = which is what our pattern formula gave above!

So using the pattern, we can now find the number of ways for the rest of the sums...

SUM Number of Ways
0 1
1 3
2 6
3 10
4 15
5 21
6 28
7 36
8 45
9 55
10 66 (not true)

But I thought that it wouldn't continue forever, cos when we get to Sum: 10, we will no longer have our first combination with zeros! that is we don't have 0010 like we had 009.
So we have to subtract 3 ways from the total number of ways: 66-3 = 63

SUM Number of Ways
10 63

Now I didn't knew how to continue for 11, so I just calculated combinations for Sum: 11:

Which gave:
SUM Number of Ways
11 69

Looking at the difference between Ways(Sum:10) and Ways(Sum:9) and Ways(Sum:11) and Ways(Sum:10):
Ways(Sum:10) - Ways(Sum:9) = 63 - 55 = 8
Ways(Sum:11) - Ways(Sum:10) = 69 - 63 = 6

Looks like the increment in number of ways is slowing down.

Is the difference between Ways(Sum:12) and Ways(Sum:11) = 4??
that is, Ways(Sum:12) = 73 [yes it is!]

Right then, we have a pattern
SUM Number of Ways
12 73 [difference of 4 from sum:11]
13 75 [difference of 2 from sum:12]
14 75 [difference of 0 from sum:13]

But now for Sum:15, what do I do?? Does it start to reverse?? I checked 15 and 16 and yes it does...so
SUM Number of Ways
15 73
16 69
17 63
18 55
19 45
20 36
21 28
22 21
23 15
24 10
25 6
26 3
27 1

Square all number of ways and add them all together to get: 55,252 combinations!

It's not an ideal solution by any means, still hoping to find (or ask timetrader LOL ) for the neater/more elegant solution

WOW awesome!!! You did it!! I didn't expect anyone to do it that way... but wow... that exceeded my expectations. You certainly deserve kudos! Awesome solution!
I'll give another way of looking onto the problem shortly!

Can't think of anything else to say.

Hail Scarish!

Thanks guys

Look forward to timetrader's solution, which I am sure will be more useful than the head-hurting solution above!

Well, no, it is not really useful I really wanted to make out of the box problem but I feel that I failed. Oh well maybe next puzzle will be better)).

Now here is how I thought it can be solved:

Remember the "Irish luck" ticket from above, and how the number of its combinations is equal to the lucky ticket? Well, it easy to see that all the "Irish luck tickets" can be divided by 11. (Starting with ones digit, add every other number (A). Add the remaining numbers (B). If A - B is divisible by 11, then the number is also divisible.) Since in our problem A=B, therefore A-B=0, and is divisible by 11. Why is it useful?

Out of this we can conclude that the number of combinations of lucky tickets is not greater than the number of tickets which can be divided by 11. So we know that the number of lucky tickets is not greater than 999 999/11 = 90909 +1 = 90910 !
(Of course there are tickets that can be divided by 11 and which are not lucky)

And as I mentioned in one of the posts above we know that the number of combinations is certainly greater than 512. So after looking on the possible answers B) is the only fitting solution.
That is it... I hope my next puzzle will be more fun )) Cheers!

PS. scarish you are scary! Once again - great job! Good luck with GMAT!

This one was fun mate...it helped clear lot of combination cobwebs
Good luck on the GMAT to you too ~ Cheers.

Work our another way to solve this problem and think it's more elegant.

First of all when analyzing the pattern of a+b+c=d+e+f (each from 0 to 9, sum= a+b+c+(9-d)+(9-e)+(9-f)=27, so there are as many tickets with "lucky" numbers as tickets with the sum of 27. Half of the problem done.

So, lets find how many 6 digit numbers' sum of digit is=27.

I made silly mistake thinking that the answer would be the same as for th problem: "how many ways are there to distribute 27 cakes among 6 people, no restriction (meaning that each can get from 0 to 27)" --> C(6-1; 27+6-1)=C(5;32), BUT no one can get more than 9 cakes (cakes=digits C(6-1; 27+6-1-10-10)=C(5;12) (again it's the same as to distribute 7 cakes among 6 people). As there are C(2;6) ways of doing this, so the total number of ways would be C(2;6)*C(5;12).

So, the answer: C(5,32)-(C(1;6)*C(5;22)-C(2;6)*C(5;12))=C(5;32)-6*C(5;22)+15*C(5;12)=55,252

Done.

Hope no such problems in GMAT.