Maximize ratio of sums

Question

I have a $2 \times n$ matrix of positive integers, where the elements are denoted by $a_{ij}$ for all $i$ in the set $\{1,2\}$ and for all $j$ in the set $\{1,\ldots,n\}$.

I would like to select a subset $S$ of the columns that maximizes the ratio $$\left(\sum_{j\in S}a_{1j}\right) / \left(\sum_{j\in S}a_{2j}\right)\,.$$

Can this be done efficiently? Is this a known problem?

For example, if

$$A=\begin{pmatrix} 1 & 2 \\ 2 & 3\end{pmatrix},$$

then the best thing to do is to choose the second column. Because, (i) if I choose column $1$ I will get $1$ as the sum of the first row and $2$ as the sum of the second row, (ii) if I choose column $2$ I will get $2$ as the sum of the first row and $3$ as the sum of the second row and (iii) if I choose column $1$ and column $2$ I will get $3$ as the sum of the first row and $5$ as the sum of the second row.

Answer 1

There's a linear-time algorithm for this problem. Find the index $j$ that maximizes the ratio $r_j = a_{1j} / a_{2j}$. This $r_j$ is the maximum possible value of the ratio of sums.

Proof: The ratio of sums can be made $\ge c$ if and only if there exists a set $S$ such that $\sum_{j \in S} a_{1j} - c a_{2j} \ge 0$. That's possible iff there exists $j$ such that $a_{1j} - c a_{2j} \ge 0$, i.e., such that $a_{1j}/a_{2j} \ge c$.

As a tip for how you could discover this on your own: play with some examples. If you try many examples and work out by hand the optimal solution, you might happen to notice the pattern (that the best ratio for the sums matches the largest ratio of columns), and that would give you a hypothesis that you could then try to prove.