Project Euler

Problem #105

Let S(A) represent the sum of elements in set A of size n. We shall call it a special sum set if for any two non-empty disjoint subsets, B and C, the following properties are true:

  1. S(B) ≠ S(C); that is, sums of subsets cannot be equal.
  2. If B contains more elements than C then S(B) > S(C).

For example, {81, 88, 75, 42, 87, 84, 86, 65} is not a special sum set because 65 + 87 + 88 = 75 + 81 + 84, whereas {157, 150, 164, 119, 79, 159, 161, 139, 158} satisfies both rules for all possible subset pair combinations and S(A) = 1286.

Using sets.txt (right click and "Save Link/Target As..."), a 4K text file with one-hundred sets containing seven to twelve elements (the two examples given above are the first two sets in the file), identify all the special sum sets, A_(1), A_(2), ..., A_(k), and find the value of S(A_(1)) + S(A_(2)) + ... + S(A_(k)).

NOTE: This problem is related to problems 103 and 106.