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Locks and keys so any four of seven can open a safe

Question

Seven employees share a safe fitted with several locks, all of which must be opened. Keys are distributed so that any 44 employees together can open the safe, but no group of 33 can. If nn is the minimum number of locks and mm is the number of keys each employee then holds, compute 10m+n10m+n.

Short answer

235. Every trio must be blocked by some lock none of them can open, and two different trios cannot share that lock (their union has at least 44 people, who must open it). So n=(73)=35n=\binom73=35, each lock's keys go to the 44 people outside its trio, and by symmetry each person holds 35⋅4/7=2035\cdot4/7=20 keys. Thus 10⋅20+35=23510\cdot20+35=235.

Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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