Necklace Puzzle

Hi All,
So I am here back again with a new interesting puzzle ( courtesy Vaibhav Gupta ). I am copying his mail verbatim below followed by the solution that I have in mind.
---------- Puzzle ------
NECKLACE PUZZLE #2

There are two circular necklaces with same number of three types of gemstones,
but the gemstones may be strung in different order along the necklace.

Now the two necklaces are placed on one top of the other so that the
gems are aligned
one above the other. Count the number of locations where the pair of
gems (one from
the lower necklace, one from the upper) is of the same type.
Since one necklace can be rotated relatively to the other, there are
many orientations
in which the count of matching gems can be taken.

Prove that there is at least one orientation where the number of
matches is at least
a certain number v.

For the special case of equal numbers of each kind of gem, v = N/3,
where N = total number of gems in one necklace (and 3 kinds of gems).

1. prove this for the special case.
2. find, with proof, value of v in the general case (with m kinds of
gems not necessarily equal in number).

some clarifications:
1. the necklace is circular i.e. its a simple closed loop. so given
two necklaces RGB and RBG,
the second can be rotated wrt first to give three orientations (but
this small example
is unusual because the number of matches is same in all 3 orientations):

RGB
RBG 1 matches

RGB
GRB 1 matches

RGB
BGR 1 matches

so v = 1

2. "there is at least one orientation where the number of matches is
at least v"
label the orientations from 1 to N. denote the number of matches for
orientation i as m[i].
then " there exists an i such that m[i] >= v" is the more formal way
of saying this.


-Vaibhav.
------------------
Well, indeed an interesting puzzle. Intially for a few minutes I thought whether it can be proved by contradiction or not. I tried to see whether I am able to hit a contradiction by imagining that "v is always less than N/3". Within a few minutes I realized that this is not going to work. As I remembered the lessons from Prof Sundar Vishvanathan , I thought of trying to prove it by induction. Prof Sundar always used to say that most of the proofs can be given by the principle of mathematical induction. This time I did not bank too much on this options as I learnt it from my earlier experience as I mentioned in my previous post. The solution of this proof also along the line which was taught to me by Prof Sundar.

The proof here makes use of the fact that if expected value of some random variable is a then there exist a possibility where the random variables has a values at least a.

Let us assume that first necklace is fixed and the second necklace is rotated with respect to the first one. Let us define a random variable X such that
X_i = 1 ( if ith gem of first necklace matches with the second one )
X_i = 0 Otherwise.

The ordering in the second necklace can be anything so assuming a uniform distribution there.
Calculating the expected value,
E(X_i) = Pr(X_i).X_i = (Number of gems having the same colour as ith gem/Total number of gems)
For 3 different kind of gems
E(X) = Sum(i=1 to N) ( E(X_i) ) = R^2/N + B^2 /N + G^2/N.

For the special case where R = B = G = N/3 we will have
E(X) = N/3. As the expected value is N/3 we can say that there is at least one configuration of second necklace which would make the number of matching gems at least N/3.

When there are m kinds of gems, not necessarily equal in number, let C[i] denote the number of gems of the same kind as i, where i varies from 1 to m.
Therefore, for general case the expected value is
E(X) = Sum (i = 1 to n ) ( C[i]^2/N )

Well, a nice puzzle indeed. As a closing remark, I have the solutions to the puzzle that I mentioned in my previous post. It will require some figures to be embedded to explain the solution in a lucid way. I will post it soon as I get the time.