Problem

Source: Czech-Polish-Slovak Match 2022 P6

Tags: combinatorics



Consider 26 letters $A,..., Z$. A string is a finite sequence consisting of those letters. We say that a string $s$ is nice if it contains each of the 26 letters at least once, and each permutation of letters $A,..., Z$ occurs in $s$ as a subsequences the same number of times. Prove that: (a) There exists a nice string. (b) Any nice string contains at least $2022$ letters.