A031970 Tennis ball problem: Balls 1 and 2 are thrown into a room; you throw one on lawn; then balls 3 and 4 are thrown in and you throw any of the 3 balls onto the lawn; then balls 5 and 6 are thrown in and you throw one of the 4 balls onto the lawn; after n turns, consider all possible collections on lawn and add all the values.

0, 3, 23, 131, 664, 3166, 14545, 65187, 287060, 1247690, 5368670, 22917198, 97195968, 410030812, 1722027973, 7204620067, 30044212828, 124932768082, 518215690018, 2144815618522, 8859729437488, 36533517261412, 150410878895818, 618371102344846, 2538971850705064, 10412490129563556

Offset: 0

Author

Louis Shapiro

Keywords

• nonn

Links

• G. C. Greubel, Table of n, a(n) for n = 0..1000
• Ilani Axelrod-Freed, 312-Avoiding Reduced Valid Hook Configurations and Duck Words, arXiv:2010.11834 [math.CO], 2020. See Definition 5.3 p. 14.
• Colin L. Mallows and Lou Shapiro, Balls on the Lawn, J. Integer Sequences, Vol. 2, 1999, #5.
• D. Merlini, R. Sprugnoli and M. C. Verri, The tennis ball problem, J. Combin. Theory, A 99 (2002), 307-344.

Crossrefs

Cf. A049235, A078516, A079486, A000108.

Programs

GAP

List([0..30], n-> (2*n^2+5*n+4)*Binomial(2*n+1, n)/(n+2) - 2^(2*n+1)); # G. C. Greubel, Apr 02 2019

Magma

[(2*n^2+5*n+4)*Binomial(2*n+1, n)/(n+2) - 2^(2*n+1): n in [0..30]]; // G. C. Greubel, Apr 02 2019

Mathematica

CoefficientList[Series[(1-9*x+20*x^2-(1-7*x+8*x^2)*Sqrt[1-4*x])/(2*x^2*(1 -8*x+16*x^2)), {x,0,30}],x] (* G. C. Greubel, Apr 02 2019 *)

PARI

a(n) = (2*n^2 + 5*n + 4)*binomial(2*n+1, n)/(n+2) - 2^(2*n+1);
/* Joerg Arndt, Dec 04 2012 */

Sage

[(2*n^2+5*n+4)*binomial(2*n+1, n)/(n+2) - 2^(2*n+1) for n in (0..30)] # G. C. Greubel, Apr 02 2019

Formula

a(n) = (2*n^2 + 5*n + 4)*binomial(2*n+1, n)/(n+2) - 2^(2*n+1). - Colin Mallows.

a(n) = Sum_{i=0..n-1} (4*n-4*i-1)*A028364(n,i), where A028364 is a Catalan triangle. e.g. for n=3 T[3..] = [5,7,9,14] then S(3) = 131 = 11*5 + 7*7 + 3*9. - David Scambler, Apr 27 2009

G.f.: (1-9*x+20*x^2-(1-7*x+8*x^2)*sqrt(1-4*x))/(2*x^2*(1-8*x+16*x^2)). - Vladimir Kruchinin, Apr 02 2019

D-finite with recurrence: (n+2)*a(n) +(-15*n-14)*a(n-1) +2*(40*n-3)*a(n-2) +8*(-22*n+25)*a(n-3) +64*(2*n-5)*a(n-4)=0. - R. J. Mathar, Jan 28 2020

Extensions

More terms from Joerg Arndt, Dec 04 2012