| Abstract: | Recently, Sloane suggested the following problem: We are given n boxes, labeled 1,2,…,n. For i=1,…,n, box i weighs (m-1)i grams (where m?2 is a fixed integer) and box i can support a total weight of i grams. What is the number of different ways to build a single stack of boxes in which no box will be squashed by the weight of the boxes above it? Prior to this generalized problem, Sloane and Sellers solved the case m=2. More recently, Andrews and Sellers solved the case m?3. In this note we give new and simple proofs of the results of Sloane and Sellers and of Andrews and Sellers, using a known connection with m-ary partitions. |
