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 employees together can open the safe, but no group of can. If is the minimum number of locks and is the number of keys each employee then holds, compute .
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 people, who must open it). So , each lock's keys go to the people outside its trio, and by symmetry each person holds keys. Thus .
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