Artificial intelligent assistant

Tricky combination question. **Problem:** In a factory there are 1,2,3,4 & 5 departmens. Choose two persons from each department and place them in a line so that there is one person between the two persons from dept. 1, two persons stand between the persons from dept. 2, three persons stand between the persons from dept. 3. etc. Is this arrangement possibe? if so, how? * * * I have no attempt really I can't figure out how to use math on this problem. Isn't it just to get 10 random peices of post-it papers with different colors and try to arrange them? I can't see "the catch" in this problem.

Label the positions, left-to-right, as $1,2,3,...,10$.

Suppose there is some arrangement which satisfies the specified conditions.

Let $x_k,y_k$ with $x_k < y_k$ be the positions of the two people from department $k$.

\begin{align*} \text{By hypothesis,}\;\,&y_k - x_k = k+1,\;\text{for all k}\\\\[4pt] \text{hence}\;&\sum_{k=1}^5(y_k-x_k)=\sum_{k=1}^5(k+1)=20\\\\[4pt] \implies\;&\sum_{k=1}^5y_k-\sum_{k=1}^5 x_k=20\\\\[8pt] \text{But also}\;&\sum_{k=1}^5y_k+\sum_{k=1}^5 x_k=1 + 2 + 3 + \cdots + 10 = 55\\\\[8pt] \text{hence}\;& \left(\sum_{k=1}^5y_k+\sum_{k=1}^5 x_k\right)+ \left(\sum_{k=1}^5y_k-\sum_{k=1}^5 x_k\right) =55 + 20\\\\[4pt] \implies\;&2\sum_{k=1}^5y_k = 75\\\\[4pt] &\text{contradiction, since}\\\\[4pt] &2\sum_{k=1}^5 y_k\;\text{must be even.}\\\\[4pt] \end{align*}

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