# Math Help - pigeonhole principle problem

1. ## pigeonhole principle problem

Hello!

The following one is really bothering me:

Suppose you live in a country with 9 000 000 inhabitants. At least how many people have their birthday on the same day?
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First I ignored the existence of the leap year, so I just simply computed 9 000 000/365 and got approx. 24657. But the answer is 24656 so I ralized that the leap year mattered. Then I assumed that 25% of the people in my country were born on a leap year and realized that at least 6147 were born on Feb. 29th by computing 9 000 000/(4*365). Then I computed (9000000-6147)/365 and got the wrong answer again. What am I doing wrong?

2. ## Re: pigeonhole principle problem

Originally Posted by mgarson
Suppose you live in a country with 9 000 000 inhabitants. At least how many people have their birthday on the same day? I just simply computed 9 000 000/365 and got approx. 24657. But the answer is 24656 so I ralized that the leap year mattered.
Leap year has nothing to do with it.
Use the floor function
$\left\lfloor {\frac{{9 \cdot 10^6 }}{{365}}} \right\rfloor = {\text{24657}}$.

3. ## Re: pigeonhole principle problem

That's just it... The hint in the book says to think of Feb. 29:th. And the answer is 24656 and not 24657. The author even wants us to explain why 24657 is wrong.