Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 ii Paper 2 17H Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Let be the two-colour clique Ramsey number. At a vertex of , either its red neighbourhood has at least vertices or its blue neighbourhood has at least . In the first case a red -clique extends through the vertex, or there is a blue -clique; the second case is symmetric. HenceWith , induction and Pascal's identity give . Taking provesThe four-vertex graph is the paw graph, a triangle with a pendant edge; the copy need not be induced. For the lower bound, colour two disjoint triangles in red and all edges between them blue. Red components have only three vertices and blue is bipartite, so neither colour contains a paw. Thus .
For the upper bound, guarantees a monochromatic triangle in , say red on a vertex set . A red edge from to any outside vertex immediately supplies a red paw. Otherwise all edges from to the remaining four vertices are blue. If those four vertices contain a blue edge , then and any vertex of form a blue triangle, and another vertex of joined to supplies its pendant edge. If they contain no blue edge, they are a red , which contains a red paw. Therefore
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 ii Paper 4 17F b iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
For the lower bound, partition the vertices of into two triples. Colour the edges inside each triple red and all edges between the triples blue. Each red component is only a triangle, while the blue graph is the triangle-free graph , so there is no monochromatic copy of . Hence .
For the upper bound, every colouring of contains a monochromatic triangle because . Suppose that a triangle is red, and let be the other four vertices. If any edge from to were red, it would be a pendant edge extending to a red . Thus all edges between and are blue.
If an edge inside were blue, then for any the vertices would form a blue triangle, and an edge from a second vertex of to would extend it to a blue . Therefore every edge inside is red. The resulting red contains a red triangle and an additional incident edge, hence a red . The blue-triangle case is symmetric, so the Ramsey number of the paw graph is