Problem of selection from overlapping sets
For a positive integer m, let be (not necessarily disjoint and potentially empty) finite sets and let be non-negative integers. Suppose that
- each set contains at least elements; and
- the union contains precisely elements.
Intuitively, it should be possible to choose precisely elements from each in such a way that no element is picked twice. Formally, what I want to prove is that there exist sets such that
- for each i;
- the cardinality of is precisely for each i; and
- for .
I tried induction on the number of sets. The case is pretty straightforward. (Assign to , assign to , and divvy up between and ; this can be done in the desired way, so that and .) But then I got stuck with having the induction hypothesis carry over.
In particular, the main difficulty is that if contains elements, this does not necessarily imply that the smaller union contains precisely elements, as the sets are not necessarily disjoint. This makes the inductive proof more difficult, and a non-inductive proof (relying on, say, inclusion-exclusion) seems prohibitively complicated.
I am hoping that someone reading this may have an ingenious shortcut in mind as to how to make the induction hypothesis go through.