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Suppose there are $n$ guests at a party (and no hosts). As the night progresses, the guests meet each other and shake hands. The same pair of guests might shake hands multiple times. for some parties stretch late into the night , and it is hard to keep track.Still, they don’t shake hands with themselves. Let Odd be the set of guests who have shaken an odd number of hands, and let even be the set of guests who have shaken an even number of hands. Which of the following stays invariant throughout the night?

  1. $ \mid \text{Odd} \mid \text{ mod } 2$
  2. $\mid \text{Even} \mid $
  3. $\mid \text{Even} \mid – \mid \text{Odd} \mid$
  4. $2 \mid \text{Even} \mid – \mid \text{Odd} \mid$
  5. $2 \mid \text{Odd} \mid – \mid \text{Even} \mid$
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According to Handshaking Lemma, number of person with odd number of handshake is always even.

Hence |odd| mod $2$ is always $0.$

Answer: A
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Method 1.

Suppose there are $5$ guest in the party $G_1$, $G_2$, $G_3$, $G_4$ and $G_5$.

Question asks which of the options is constant irrespective of how many handshakes happened.

Let us take $2$ instances so that we can verify which of the following options is not changing.

Suppose party has just started and $G_5$ shake hands with everyone and $G_2, G_3$ shake hands $2$ times as shown.

 

Now after sometimes more handshakes happened and handshakes are as shown below

Note that here $G_1$ shake hands with $G_5$ $3$ times and $G_2,G_3$ shake hands $2$ times with each other respectively.

    $instance_1$ $instance_2$
$A.$ $|Odd|\ mod\ 2$ $4\ mod\ 2 = 0$ $(G_1, G_2,G_3,G_4)$ $2\ mod\ 2 = 0$ $(G_4,G_2)$
$B.$ $|Even|$ $1\ (G_5)$ $3 \ (G_1,G_3,G_5)$
$C.$ $|Even| - |Odd|$ $4-1 = 3$ $2 -3 = -1$
$D.$ $2|Even| - |Odd|$ $2 - 4 = -2$ $6 - 2 =4$
$E.$ $2|Odd| - |Even|$ $8 - 1 =7$ $4 - 3 =1$

 

Hence from the above table it is clear that Option $A.$ is the correct choice.


Method 2.

 

If you look at question carefully , then we can convert the question into question of Graph theory, which says if there can be multiple edges between vertices and no vertex can have self loops then which of the following options is correct.

Also we know from Handshaking theorem that Number of vertices with Odd degree in a graph is always Even.

So we can directly select Option $A.$ as correct choice.

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Whenever a handshake happens,one of the following 3 cases may happen.

1--2 persons get added into Odd set

2--one person of Odd set get substituted by a new person.

3--2 persons get removed from the group.

EXAMPLE:

Consider there are 4 persons a,b,c,d in party.

Let us see what happens for every hand shake.

1--a,b shake hands. Now Odd={a,b} ,even={}

2--c,d shake hands.Now Odd={a,b,c,d},even={}.

3--a,b shake hands again.Now Odd={c,d},even={a,b}.Since a,b had 2 handshakes each and c,d had 1 hand shake each.

4--a,c shake hands.Now Odd={a,d},even={c,b}.since a had 3 hand shakes,d had 1 hand shake ,c and b had 2 handshakes each.

Therefore we can say that after every hand shake, cardinality of Odd set will either increase by 2 or remains same or decrease by 2. So cardinality of Odd set is always even .

Hence option A is true.

you can see other options value may change for a new handshake.

Ps:

If 2 persons in Odd set shake hand ,then both of them move into Even set.

If 2 persons in Even set shake hand,then both of them move into Odd set.

If a person x in Odd set and person y in even set shake hand,then x moves into Odd set and y moves into Even set.

 

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Answer : A

This is Fundamental Problem of GRAPH THEORY

From the concept of GRAPH THEORY In Any Graph there are an EVEN no. of Odd Degree Vertices .

So, for N Guests , no. of guests shake Hand with other guests ODD no. of times is Always Even . 

so, |Odd | mod 2 

 |Odd| , no. of Odd hand shaking is always Even

so,  |Odd | mod 2  = 0

Answer:

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