102 COMBINATORIAL PROBLEMS FROM THE TRAINING OF THE USA IMO TEAM Titu Andreescu and Zuming FengPreface This book contains one hundred and two highly selected problems used in the training and testing of the USA International Math- ematical Olympiad (IMO) team. It is not a collection of very difficult, impenetrable questions. Instead, the book gradually builds students’ combinatorial skills and techniques. This work aims to broaden students’ view of mathematics and better prepare them for possible participation in various mathematical competitions. It provides in-depth enrichment in important areas of combinatorics by reorganizing and enhancing students’ problem-solving tactics and strategies. The book further stimulates students’ interest for future study of mathematicsIntroduction In the United States of America, the selection process leading to participation in the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) consists of a series of national contests called the American Math- ematics Contest 10 (AMC 10), the American Mathematics Contest: 12 (AMC 12), the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), and the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO). Participation in the AIME and the USAMO is by in- vitation only, based on performance in the preceding exams of the sequence. The Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program (MOSP) is a four-week intensive training program for around one hundred very promising students who have risen to the top in the American Mathematics Competitions. The six students representing the United States of America in the IMO are selected on the basis of their USAMO scores and further testing that takes place during MOSP Throughout MOSP, full days of classes and extensive problem sets give students thorough preparation in several important areas of mathematics. These topics include combinatorial arguments and identities, generating functions, graph theory, recursive relations, sums and products, probability, number theory, polynomials, theory of equations, complex numbers in geometry, algorithmic proofs, com- binatorial and advanced geometry, functional equations, and classical inequalities. Olympiad-style exams consist of several challenging essay problems. Correct solutions often require deep analysis and careful argument Olympiad questions can seem impenetrable to the novice, yet most can be solved with elementary high school mathematics techniques, vvi INTRODUCTION cleverly applied. Here is some advice for students who attempt the problems that follow. ¢ Take your time! Very few contestants can solve all the given problems ¢ Try to make connections between problems. An important theme of this work is: all important techniques and ideas featured in the book appear more than once! . Olympiad problems don’t “crack” immediately. Be patient. Try different approaches. Experiment with simple cases. In some cases, working backward from the desired result is helpful. . Even if you can solve a problem, do read the solutions. They may contain some ideas that did not occur in your solutions, and they may discuss strategic and tactical approaches that can be used elsewhere. The solutions are also models of elegant presentation that you should emulate, but they often obscure the torturous process of investigation, false starts, inspiration, and attention to detail that led to them. When you read the solutions, try to reconstruct the thinking that went into them. Ask yourself, “What were the key ideas?” “How can I apply these ideas further?” . Go back to the original problem later, and see if you can solve it in a different way. Many of the problems have multiple solutions, but not all are outlined here. . Meaningful problem solving takes practice. Don’t get discouraged if you have trouble at first. For additional practice, use the books on the reading listAcknowledgments ‘Thanks to Po-Ling Loh, Po-Ru Loh, and ‘Tim Perrin who helped with typesetting, proofreading and preparing solutions. Many problems are either inspired by or adapted from mathematical contests in different countries and from the following journals: High-School Mathematics, China Revista Matematica Timigoara, Romania We did our best to cite all the original sources of the problems in the solution section. We express our deepest appreciation to the original proposers of the problems. viiiAbbreviations and Notations Abbreviations AHSME American High School Mathematics Examination AIME American Invitational Mathematics Examination AMC10 American Mathematics Contest 10 AMC12 American Mathematics Contest 12, which replaces AHS) ARML American Regional Mathematics League IMO International Mathematical Olympiad USAMO United States of America Mathematical Olympiad MOSP Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program Putnam The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition St. Petersburg St. Petersburg (Leningrad) Mathematical Olympiad for Numerical Sets and Fields the set of integers the set of integers modulo n the set of positive integers the set of nonnegative integers the set of rational numbers the set of positive rational numbers the set of nonnegative rational numbers the set of n-tuples of rational numbers: the set of real numbers the set of positive real numbers the set of nonnegative real numbers the set of n-tuples of real numbers the set of complex numbers the coefficient of the term 2” in the polynomial p(«)ABBREVIATIONS and NOTATIONS xi Notations for Sets, Logic, and Geometry Al ACB ACB A\B ANB AUB aceA the number of elements in set A Ais a proper subset of B Ais asubset of B A without B the intersection of sets A and B the union of sets A and B the element a belongs to the set Axii Contents PREFACE .... INTRODUCTION ....... ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABBREVIATIONS AND NOTATIONS . 1. INTRODUCTORY PROBLEMS . 2. ADVANCED PROBLEMS .... 3. SOLUTIONS TO INTRODUCTORY PROBLEMS . 22 4. SOLUTIONS TO ADVANCED PROBLEMS . GLOSSARY FURTHER READING1 Introductory ProblemsIntroductory Problems . Mr. and Mrs. Zeta want to name their baby Zeta so that its monogram (first, middle, and last initials) will be in alphabetical order with no letters repeated. How many such monograms are possible? The student lockers at Olympic High are numbered consecutively beginning with locker number 1. ‘The plastic digits used to number the lockers cost two cents apiece. Thus, it costs two cents to label locker number 9 and four cents to label locker number 10. If it costs $137.94 to label all the lockers, how many lockers are there at the school? Let n be an odd integer greater than 1. Prove that the sequence (1). @)() contains an odd number of odd numbers How many positive integers not exceeding 2001 are multiples of 3 or 4 but not 5? . Let a = .123456789101112...998999, where the digits are obtained by writing the integers 1 through 999 in order. Find the 1983"¢ digit to the right of the decimal point. . Twenty five boys and twenty five girls sit around a table. Prove that it is always possible to find a person both of whose neighbors are girls. . At the end of a professional bowling tournament, the top 5 bowlers have a play-off. First #£5 bowls #4. The loser receives 5¢” prize and the winner bowls #3 in another game. The loser of this game receives receives 4" prize and the winner bowls #2. The loser of this game receives 3°¢ prize and the winner bowls #1. The winner of this game gets 1* prize and the loser gets 2° prize. In how many orders can bowlers #1 through #5 receive the prizes? A spider has one sock and one shoe for each of its eight legs. In how many different orders can the spider put on its socks and shoes, assuming that, on each leg, the sock must be put on before the shoe?Introductory Problems 3 9. 10 ll 13 14 16. . In a room containing } A drawer in a darkened room contains 100 red socks, 80 green socks, 60 blue socks and 40 black socks. A youngster selects socks one at a time from the drawer but is unable to see the color of the socks drawn, What is the smallest number of socks that must be selected to guarantee that the selection contains at least 10 pairs? (A pair of socks is two socks of the same color. No sock may be counted in more than one pair.) Given a rational number, write it as a fraction in lowest terms and calculate the product of the resulting numerator and denom- inator. For how many rational numbers between 0 and | will 20! be the resulting product? Determine the number of ways to choose five numbers from the first eighteen positive integers such that any two chosen numbers differ by at least 2 people, N > 3, at least one person has not shaken hands with everyone else in the room. What is the maximum number of people in the room that could have shaken hands with everyone else? Find the number of ordered quadruples (1, odd integers that satisfy a; + 2%2+¢3 +a4= rg, a4) of positive 8. Finitely many cards are placed in two stacks, with more cards in the left stack than the right. Each card has one or more distinct names written on it, although different cards may share some names. For each name, we define a shuffle by moving every card that has that name written on it to the opposite stack. Prove that it is always possible to end up with more cards in the right stack by picking several distinct names, and doing in turn the shuffle corresponding to each name For how many pairs of consecutive integers in the set {1000, 1001, 1002, ..., 2000} is no carrying required when the two integers are added? Nine chairs in a row are to be occupied by six students and Professors Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. These three professors arrive before the six students and decide to choose their chairs so that each professor will be between two students. In how many ways can Professors Alpha, Beta, and Gamma choose their17. 18 19 21 22. 23 24 Introductory Problems chairs? Prove that among any 16 distinct positive integers not exceeding 100 there are four different ones, a,b, ¢,d, such that a+b = c+, A child has a set of 96 distinct blocks. Each block is of one of 2 materials (plastic, wood), 3 sizes (small, medium, large), 4 colors (blue, green, red, yellow), and 4 shapes (circle, hexagon, square, triangle). How many blocks in the set are different from the “plastic medium red circle” in exactly two ways? (The “wood medium red square” is such a block.) Call a 7-digit telephone number djdgd3 — dadsdgd7 memorable if the prefix sequence didedg is exactly the same as either of the sequences dadsdg or dsdedz (possibly both). Assuming that each d; can be any of the ten decimal digits 0,1,2,...,9, find the number of different memorable telephone numbers Two of the squares of a 7 x 7 checkerboard are painted yellow, and the rest are painted green. Two color schemes are equivalent if one can be obtained from the other by applying a rotation in the plane of the board. How many inequivalent color schemes are possible? In how many ways can one arrange the numbers 21, 31, 41, 51, 61, 71, and 81 such that the sum of every four consecutive numbers is divisible by 3? Let S be a set with six elements. In how many different ways can one select two not necessarily distinct subsets of S' so that the union of the two subsets is S? The order of the selection does not matter; for example the pair of subsets {a,c}, {b,c,d,e, f} represents the same selection as the pair {b,c,d,e, f}, {a,c}. A set of positive numbers has the triangle property if it has three distinct elements that are the lengths of the sides of a triangle whose area is positive. Consider sets {4,5,6,...,n} of consecutive positive integers, all of whose ten-element subsets have the triangle property. What is the largest possible value of n? Let A and B be disjoint sets whose union is the set of natural numbers. Show that for every natural number n there exist distinct a,b > n such that {a,batb}CA or {aba +b} CB.Introductory Problems 5 25. The increasing sequence 1,3,4,9,10,12,13,... consists of all re those positive integers which are powers of 3 or sums of distinct powers of 3. Find the 100" term of this sequence (where | is the 1 term, 3 is the 2"¢ term, and so on) Every card in a deck has a picture of one shape — circle, square, or triangle, which is painted in one of three colors — red, blue, or green. Furthermore, each color is applied in one of three shades — light, medium, or dark. The deck has 27 cards, with every shape-color-shade combination represented. A set of three cards from the deck is called complementary if all of the following statements are true: (a) Hither each of the three cards has a different shape or all three of the cards have the same shape. (b) Either each of the three cards has a different color or all three of the cards have the same color. (c) Either each of the three cards has a different shade or all three of the cards have the same shade. How many different complementary three-card sets are there? At a math camp, every m students share exactly one common friend, m > 3. (If A is a friend of B, then B is a friend of A. Also, A is not his own friend.) Suppose person P has the largest number of friends. Determine what that number is. Suppose that 7 boys and 13 girls line up in a row. Let S be the number of places in the row where a boy and a girl are standing next to each other. For example, for the row GBBGGGBGBGGGBGBGGBGG we have S = 12. Find the average value of S (if all possible orders of these 20 people are considered) A bored student walks down a hall that contains a row of closed lockers, numbered 1 to 1024. He opens the locker numbered 1, and then alternates between skipping and opening each closed locker thereafter. When he reaches the end of the hall, the student turns around and starts back. He opens the first closed locker he encounters, and then alternates between skipping and opening cach closed locker thereafter. The student continues wandering back and forth in this manner until every locker is open. What is the number of the last locker he opens?30. 31. 32. 35. 38. 39. Introductory Problems Let n = 2813!°. How many positive integer divisors of n? are less than n but do not divide n? In an arena, each row has 199 seats. One day, 1990 students are coming to attend a soccer match. It is only known that at most 39 students are from the same school. If students from the same school must sit in the same row, determine the minimum number of rows that must be reserved for these students. Let T = {9* | k is an integer, 0 < k < 4000}. Given that 94° has 3817 digits and that its first (leftmost) digit is 9, how many elements of T have 9 as their leftmost digit? For what values of n > 1 do there exist a number m that can be written in the form a, +--+ + dp (with a; € {1},a. € {1,2},...,an € {1,.-.,n}) in (n — 1)! or more ways? Let the sum of a set of numbers be the sum of its elements. Let S be a set of positive integers, none greater than 15. Suppose no two disjoint subsets of S have the same sum. What is the largest sum a set S with these properties can have? There are at least four candy bars in n (n > 4) boxes. Each time, Mr. Fat. is allowed to pick two boxes, take one candy bar from each of the two boxes, and put those candy bars into a third box. Determine if it is always possible to put all the candy bars into one box. Determine, with proof, if it is possible to arrange 1,2,..., 1000 in a row such that the average of any pair of distinct numbers is not located in between the two numbers. Let A) Ay... Ao be a regular dodecagon with O as its center Triangular regions OA; Aj41, 1 < i < 12 (and Ais = Ai) are to be colored red, blue, green, or yellow such that adjacent regions are colored in different colors. In how many ways can this be done? There are 2n people at a party. Each person has an even number of friends at the party. (Here friendship is a mutual relationship.) Prove that there are two people who have an even number of common friends at the party. How many different 4 x 4 arrays whose entries are all 1’s and —I's have the property that the sum of the entries in each row is 0 and the sum of the entries in each column is 07Introductory Problems 7 40 Al. 42 44. 45. A square of dimensions (n — 1) x (n — 1) is divided into (n — 1)? unit squares in the usual manner. Each of the n? vertices of these squares is to be colored red or blue. Find the number of different colorings such that each unit square has exactly two red vertices. (Two coloring schemes are regarded as different if at least one vertex is colored differently in the two schemes.) Sixty-four balls are separated into several piles. At each step we are allowed to apply the following operation. Pick two piles, say pile A with p balls and pile B with q balls and p > q, and then remove q balls from pile A and put them in pile B. Prove that it is possible to put all the balls into one pile A game of solitaire is played with a finite number of nonnegative integers. On the first move the player designates one integer as large, and replaces another integer by any nonnegative integer strictly smaller than the designated large integer. On subsequent steps play is similar, except that integer replaced must be the one designated as large on the previous play. Prove that in some finite number of steps play must. end. . Given $C {1,2,...,n}, we are allowed to modify it in any one of the following ways: (a) if 1 ¢ S, add the element 1; (b) ifne (c) for 1 {2} 4 --- > {n}, starting with @ and ending with {n}, in which each of the 2” subsets of {1,2,...,n} appears exactly once. Prove that n = 2™ — 1 for some m There are 2001 coins on a table. For i = 1,2,...,2001 in succession, one must turn over exactly i coins. Prove that it is always possible either to make all of the coins face up or to make all of the coins face down, but not both For {1,2,...,n} and each of its nonempty subsets a unique alternating sum is defined as follows: Arrange the numbers in the46 47. 48 Introductory Problems subset in decreasing order and then, beginning with the largest, alternately add and subtract successive numbers. (For example, the alternating sum for {1,2,4,6,9} is9-6+4-2+1=6 and for {5} it is simply 5.) Find the sum of all such alternating sums for n 7 In a game of Chomp, two players alternately take “bites” from a 5-by-7 grid of unit squares. To take a bite, the player chooses one of the remaining squares, then removes (“eats”) all squares found in the quadrant defined by the left edge (extended upward) and the lower edge (extended rightward) of the chosen square. For example, the bite determined by the shaded square in the diagram would remove the shaded square and the four squares marked by x (The squares with two or more dotted edges have been removed from the original board in previous moves.) The object of the game is to make one’s opponent take the last bite. The diagram shows one of the many subsets of the set of 35 unit squares that can occur during the game of Chomp. How many different subsets are there in all? Include the full board and the empty board in your count. Each square of a 1998 x 2002 chess board contains either 0 or 1 such that the total number of squares containing | is odd in each row and each column. Prove that the number of white unit squares containing 1 is even Let S be a subset of {1,2,3,... , 1989} such that no two members of S differ by 4 or 7. What is the largest number of elements 5 can have? A class of fifteen boys and fifteen girls is seated around a round table. Their teacher wishes to pair up the students and hand out fifteen tests—one test to each pair.Introductory Problems 9 As the teacher is preparing to select the pairs and hand out the tests, he wonders to himself, “How many seating arrangements would allow me to match up boy/girl pairs sitting next to each other without having to ask any student to change his or her seat?” Answer the teacher’s question. (Two seating arrangements are regarded as being the same if one can be obtained from the other by a rotation.) Two squares on an 8 x 8 chessboard are called touching if they have at least. one common vertex. Determine if it is possible for a king to begin in some square and visit all the squares exactly once in such a way that. all moves except. the first are made into squares touching an even number of squares already visited A total of 119 residents live in a building with 120 apartments. We call an apartment overpopulated if there are at least 15 people living there. Every day the inhabitants of an overpopulated apartment have a quarrel and each goes off to a different apart- ment in the building (so they can avoid each other). Is it true that. this process will necessarily be completed someday?2 Advanced Problems12 Advanced Problems 1. In a tournament each player played exactly one game against each of the other players. In each game the winner was awarded | point, the loser got 0 points, and each of the two players earned 1/2 point if the game was a tie. After the completion of the tournament, it was found that exactly half of the points earned by each player were earned in games against the ten players with the least number of points. (In particular, each of the ten lowest scoring players earned half of her/his points against the other nine of the ten). What was the total number of players in the tournament? 2. Let n be an odd integer greater than 1. Find the number of permutations p of the set {1,2,...,n} for which Ip) = 1] + [p(2) = 2| +++ p(n) = nfs 3. In a sequence of coin tosses one can keep a record of the number of instances when a tail is immediately followed by a head, a head is immediately followed by a head, etc. We denote these by TH, HH, etc. For example, in the sequence HHTTHHHHTHHTTTT of 15 coin tosses we observe that there are five HH, three HT, two TH , and four TT subse- quences. How many different sequences of 15 coin tosses will contain exactly two HH, three HT, four TH and five TT subsequences? 4, Let A = (a1,a2,...,@2001) be a sequence of positive integers. Let m be the number of 3-element subsequences (a;,aj;,a,) with 4, for which one can choose four different numbers a,b,c,d from any n distinct integers such that a +b —c—d is divisible by 20 . A mail carrier delivers mail to the nineteen houses on the east side of Elm Street. The carrier notes that no two adjacent housesAdvanced Problems 13 Fro) 10 ll 12 13 ever get mailon the same day, but that there are never more than two houses in a row that get no mail on the same day. How many different patterns of mail delivery are possible? For i= 1,2,..., 11, let M; be a set. of five elements, and assume that for every 1< i1 satisfies the conditions a; =0,a2 = 1, 1 1 ay = 5 dyn + 500 = Lata (-1)" (1 7Advanced Problems 15 19 20. 24. n> 3. Determine the explicit form of n n fn = an +2(T)n+3( Jans n n tohin=D(,%,)ete(,” Jo For a set A, let |A| and s(A) denote the number of the elements in A and the sum of elements in A, respectively. (If A = 0, then |A| = s(A) =0.) Let S be a set of positive integers such that (a) there are two numbers x,y € S with ged(x,y) = 1; (b) for any two numbers #,y€S,a+yES. Prove that Let T be the set of all positive integers not in s(T) < |T|? < 0. In a forest each of 9 animals lives in its own cave, and there is exactly one separate path between any two of these caves. Before the election for Forest Gump, King of the Forest, some of the animals make an election campaign. Each campaign-making animal—FGC (Forest Gump candidate)—visits each of the other caves exactly once, uses only the paths for moving from cave to cave, never turns from one path to another between the caves, and returns to its own cave at the end of the campaign. It is also known that no path between two caves is used by more than one FGC. Find the maximum possible number of FGC’s. For a sequence Aj,...,An of subsets of {1,...,n} and a permu- tation m of S = {1,...,n}, we define the diagonal set Dr(A1, Az,.--5An) = (6 S| ig Any}. What is the maximum possible number of distinct sets which can occur as diagonal sets for a single choice of A1,..., An? A subset M of {1,2,3,...,15} does not contain three elements whose product is a perfect square. Determine the maximum number of elements in M Find all finite sequences (#9,21,...,@n) such that for every j, 0 2, is colored one of two colors (red or blue). Show that there must be a monochromatic n-term sequence a) < a2 <9 < ay satisfying = a1 Sg = 2 S++ S dy = ya The set {1,2,...,3n} is partitioned into three sets A, B, and CAdvanced Problems Ww 33 34. 35. 36 38. with each set containing n numbers. Determine with proof if it is always possible to choose one number out of each set so that one of these numbers is the sum of the other two. Assume that each of the 30 MOPpers has exactly one favorite chess variant and exactly one favorite classical inequality. Each MOPper lists this information on a survey. Among the survey responses, there are exactly 20 different favorite chess variants and exactly 10 different favorite inequalities. Let n be the number of MOPpers M such that the number of MOPpers who listed M’s favorite inequality is greater than the number of MOPpers who listed c favorite chess variant. Prove that n > 11 Starting from a triple (a,b,c) of nonnegative integers, a move consists of choosing two of them, say # and y, and replacing one of them by either x + y or |x — |. For example, one can go from (3,5, 7) to (3,5, 4) in one move. Prove that there exists a constant r > 0 such that whenever a,b,c,n are positive integers with a,b,¢ <2", there is a sequence of at most rn moves transforming (a,b,c) into (a’,b',c’) with a’b’c! = 0 A rectangular array of numbers is given. In each row and each column, the sum of all the numbers is an integer. Prove that each nonintegral number zx in the array can be changed into either [x] or |x] so that the row-sums and the column-sums remain unchanged. (Note that [2] is the least integer greater than or equal to x, while [a is the greatest integer less than or equal to x) A finite set of (distinct) positive integers is called a DS-set if each of the integers divides the sum of them all. Prove that every finite t. set of positive integers is a subset of some DS-s . Twelve musicians M,, Mz,--- , Miz gather at a week-long cham- ber music festival. Each day, there is one scheduled concert and some of the musicians play while the others listen as members of the audience. For i = 1,2,...,12, let tj be the number of concerts in which musician M; plays, and let =) +l2+++-+lio. Determine the minimum value of t such that it is possible for each musician to listen, as a member of the audience, to all the other musicians. An m x n array is filled with the numbers {1,2,...n}, each used exactly m times. Show that one can always permute the numbers18 40 41 42 43 Advanced Problems within columns to arrange that each row contains every number {1,2,...,n} exactly once. Let set U = {1,2,...,n}, where n > 3. A subset S of U is said to be split by an arrangement of the elements of U if an element not in S occurs in the arrangement somewhere between two elements of S. For example, 13542 splits {1,2,3} but not {3,4,5 }. Prove that for any n — 2 subsets of U, each containing at least 2 and at most n—1 elements, there is an arrangement of the the elements of U which splits all of them A pile of n pebbles is placed in a vertical column. This config- uration is modified according to the following rules. A pebble can be moved if it is at the top of a column which contains at least two more pebbles than the column immediately to its right (If there are no pebbles to the right, think of this as a column with 0 pebbles.) At each stage, choose a pebble from among those that can be moved (if there are any) and place it at the top of the column to its right. If no pebbles can be moved, the configuration is called a final configuration. For each n, show that, no matter what choices are made at each stage, the final configuration obtained is unique. Describe that configuration in terms of n. Let By be the set of all binary strings of length n. Given two strings (aj), and (b;)#1, define the distance between the strings as d((a;), (65) = Yo ar = 64 k=1 Let C, be a subset of B,. The set Cy is called a perfect error correcting code (PECC) of length n and tolerance m if for each string (b;) in B, there is a unique string (¢;) in C, with d((b;), (ci)) < m. Prove that there is no PECC of length 90 and tolerance 2. Determine if it is possible to arrange the numbers 1,1,2,2,...,n, n such that there are j numbers between two j’s, 1 s; + s; for all nonnegative integers i,j. Suppose {s,} and {t,} are two superadditive sequences, and let {u;} be the nondecreasing sequence with the property that each integer appears in {u,} as many times as in {sn} and {t,} combined. Show that {u,} is also superadditive. The numbers from 1 to n?, n > 2, are randomly arranged in the cells of an nxn unit square grid. For any pair of numbers situated on the same row or on the same column, the ratio of the greater number to the smaller one is calculated. The characteristic of the arrangement is the smallest of these n?(n — 1) fractions. Determine the largest possible value of the characteristic. For a set 5, let |,S| denote the number of elements in S. Let A be a set with |A] =n, and let Ay, Ao,..., An be subsets of A with Aj] > 2, 1 2k. Let 5 be a nonempty set of k-clement subsets of {1,...,n} with the property that every (k + L)-element subset of {1,...,n} contains exactly m elements of S. Prove that S must contain every k-element subset of {1,...,n} A set T is called even if it has an even number of elements. Let n be a positive even integer, and let $1, .S2,...,S, be even subsets of the set S = {1,2,...,n}. Prove that there exist i and j, 1 \ n= (7). ()» contains an odd number of odd numbers Solution: The sum of the numbers in the given sequence equals s[()+Q)e+(tJete-sert which is an odd number and the conclusion follows. [AMC12 2001] How many positive integers not exceeding 2001 are multiples of 3 or 4 but not 5? Solution: For integers not exceeding 2001, there are [2001/3] = 667 multiples of 3 and [2001/4] = 500 multiples of 4. The total, 1167, counts the [2001/12] = 166 multiples of 12 twice, so there are 1167 — 166 = 1001 multiples of 3 or 4. From these we exclude the [2001/15] = 133 multiples of 15 and the [2001/20] = 100 multiples of 20, since these are multiples of 5. However, this excludes the [2001/60] = 33 multiples of 60 twice, so we must re-include these. The number of integers satisfying the conditions is 1001 — 133 — 100 + 33 = 801. . [AHSME 1983] Let & = .123456789101112...998999, where the digits are obtained by writing the integers 1 through 999 in order. Find the 1983"¢ digit to the right of the decimal point. Solution: Look at the first 1983 digits, and let z denote the 1983"¢ digit. We may break this string of digits into threeSolutions to Introductory Problems 25 segments: 123456789 1011...9899 lO0101...2. Eee ee A B Cc There are 9 digits in A, 2-90 = 180 in B, hence 1983-189 = 1794 in C. Dividing 1794 by 3 we get 598 with remainder 0. Thus C consists of the first 598 3-digit integers. Since the first 3+ digit integer is 100 (not 101 or 001), the 598'" 3-digit integer is 598 + 99 = 697. Thus z =7 ‘Twenty five boys and twenty five girls sit around a table. Prove that it is always possible to find a person both of whose neighbors are girls. First Solution: For the sake of contradiction we assume that there is a seating arrangement such that there is no one sitting in between two girls. We call a block any group of girls(boys) sitting next to each other and sandwiched by boys(girls) from both sides. By our assumption, each girl block has at most 2 girls and there are at least 2 boys in the gap between two consecutive girl blocks. Hence there are at least [25/2] = 18 girl blocks and at least 2x 13 boys sitting in between the 13 gaps between girls blocks. But we only have 25 boys, a contradiction. Therefore our assumption was wrong and it is always possible to find someone sitting between two girls. Second Solution: We again approach indirectly by assuming that there is a seating arrangement such that no one is sitting in between two girls. We further assume that they are sitting is positions a), qa2,...,a50 in a counterclockwise order (so aso is next to a). Now we split them into two tables with seating orders (a1, @3,@5,...,d49) and (a2,@4,@s,...,@50), each in coun- terclockwise order. Then by our assumption, no girls are next to each other in the resulting two seating arrangements. Then there are at most 12 girls sitting around each new table for a total of at most 24 girls, a contradiction. Therefore our assumption was wrong and it is always possible to find someone sitting in between two girls. . [AHSME 1988] At the end of a professional bowling tournament, the top 5 bowlers have a play-off. First #5 bowls #4. The loserSolutions to Introductory Problems receives 5¢/ loser of this game receives receives 4‘ prize and the winner bowls #2. The loser of this game receives 3" prize and the winner bowls #1. The winner of this game gets 1** prize and the loser gets 2”¢ prize. In how many orders can bowlers #1 through #5 receive the prizes? prize and the winner bowls #3 in another game. The Solution: There are 4 games in every play-off, and each game has 2 possible outcomes. For each sequence of 4 outcomes, the prizes are awarded in a different way. Thus there are 24 = 16 possible orders. . [AMC 12 2001] A spider has one sock and one shoe for each of its eight legs. In how many different orders can the spider put on its socks and shoes, assuming that, on each leg, the sock must be put on before the shoe? Solution: Number the spider’s legs from 1 through 8, and let ay and by denote the sock and shoe that will go on leg k. A possible arrangement of the socks and shoes is a permutation of the sixteen symbols a,,b1,...,ag,bs, in which a, precedes by for 1 < k < 8. There are 16! permutations of the sixteen symbols, and a; precedes 6; in exactly half of these, or 16!/2 permutations. Similarly, ay precedes bo in exactly half of those, or 16!/2? permutations. Continuing, we can conclude that a, precedes bj, for 1 < k < 8 in exactly 16!/2° permutations. . [AHSME 1986] A drawer in a darkened room contains 100 red socks, 80 green socks, 60 blue socks and 40 black socks. A youngster selects socks one at a time from the drawer but is unable to see the color of the socks drawn. What is the smallest number of socks that must be selected to guarantee that the selection contains at least 10 pairs? (A pair of socks is two socks of the same color. No sock may be counted in more than one pair.) First Solution: For any selection, at most one sock of each color will be left unpaired, and this happens if and only if an odd number of socks of that color is selected. Thus 24 socks suffice: at most 4 will be unpaired, leaving at least 20 in pairs. However,Solutions to Introductory Problems 27 10. ll. 23 will do! Since 23 is not the sum of four odd numbers, at most 3 socks out of 23 will be unpaired. On the other hand, 22 will not do: if the numbers of red, green, blue, and black socks are 5,5,5,7, then four are unpaired, leaving 9 pairs. Thus 23 is the minimum. Second Solution: Proceed inductively. If we require only one pair, then it suffices to select 5 socks. Moreover, selecting 4 socks doesn’t guarantee a pair since we might select one sock of each color, If we require two pairs, then it suffices to select 7 socks: any set of 7 socks must contain a pair; if we remove this pair, then the remaining 5 socks will contain a second pair as shown above. On the other hand, 6 socks might contain 3 greens, | black, 1 red and 1 blue — hence only one pair. Thus 7 socks is the smallest number to guarantee two pairs. Similar reasoning shows that we must draw 9 socks to guarantee 3 pairs, and in general, 2p +3 socks to guarantee p pairs. This formula is easily proved by mathematical induction. Thus 23 socks are needed to guarantee 10 pairs. [AIME 1991] Given a rational number, write it as a fraction in lowest terms and calculate the product of the resulting numerator and denominator. For how many rational numbers between 0 and 1 will 20! be the resulting product? Solution: For a fraction to be in lowest terms, its numerator and denominator must be relatively prime. Thus any prime factor that occurs in the numerator cannot occur in the denominator, and vice-versa. There are eight prime factors of 20!, namely 2,3,5,7, 11, 13,17, and 19. For each of these prime factors, one must decide only whether it occurs in the numerator or in the denominator. These eight decisions can be made in a total of 28 = 256 ways. However, not all of the 256 resulting fractions will be less than 1. Indeed, they can be grouped into 128 pairs of reciprocals, each containing exactly one fraction less than 1 Thus the number of rational numbers with the desired property is 128. Determine the number of ways to choose five numbers from the28 12 Solutions to Introductory Problems first eighteen positive integers such that any two chosen numbers differ by at least 2. Solution: — Let a; < ay < a3 < ay < as be the five chosen numbers. Consider the numbers (61, 62,63, ba,b5) = (a1,42 — l,ag3 — 2,a4 — 3,45 — 4). Then b;,b2,b3,b4,b5 are five distinct numbers from the first fourteen positive integers. Conversely, from any five distinct numbers b; < be < b3 < ba < b5 we can reconstruct (a1, 42,43, 44,45) = (bi, bz + 1,63 + 2,b4 + 3, bs +4) to obtain five numbers satisfying the conditions of the problem. Thus we found a one-to-one mapping between the set of five numbers satisfying the given conditions and the set. of five distinct numbers from the first fourteen positive integers. Therefore the answer is (14) = 2002 [AHSME 1978] In a room containing N people, N > 3, at least one person has not shaken hands with everyone else in the room. What is the maximum number of people in the room that could have shaken hands with everyone else? Solution: Label the people Ai, As,... , Ay in such a way that A, and Ay are a pair that did not shake hands with each other Possibly every other pair of people shook hands, so that only Ay and Ay did not shake with everyone else. Therefore, at most N = 2 people shook hands with everyone else. . [AIME 1998] Find the number of ordered quadruples (#1, #2, 3, x4) of positive odd integers that satisfy 2, + 2 -+ 23 +24 = 98 Solution: Each x; can be replaced by 2y; — 1, where y; is a positive integer. Because 4 4 m= en -0)=2 (Sn) -4 i=l i=) it follows that 51 = 4, yz. Each such quadruple (91, y2, 93, Ya) corresponds in a one-to-one fashion to a row of 51 ones that has been separated into four groups by the insertion of three zeros. For example, (17,5, 11, 18) corresponds to LLLDLALILTTTTLTALOLITLTOULLITLILITLOLIIIT TALI.Solutions to Introductory Problems 29 14, 15. There are (°') = 19600 ways to insert three zeros into the fifty spaces between adjacent ones (USSR, 1968] Finitely many cards are placed in two stacks, with more cards in the left stack than the right. Each card has one or more distinct names written on it, although different cards may share some names. For each name, we define a shuffle by moving every card that has that name written on it to the opposite stack. Prove that it is always possible to end up with more cards in the right stack by picking several distinct names, and doing in turn the shuffle corresponding to each name. Solution: — (By Oaz Nir) We will prove the statement by induction on n, the number of distinct names present. Call the left stack L and the right stack R. For case n = 1, one shuffle will do the job. We now assume that we have proven the statement for n names (for some positive integer n), and consider the case with n+ 1 names. Call the first n names a1, a,..., an, and let the new name be a. There are two cases. e Case 1: The number of F cards containing only the name a is less than or equal to the number of R cards containing only the name a. We can ignore the name a and use the induction hypothesis to perform required shuffles using some subsets of the n names a), d2,...,d, and we will be done: there are now more of these remaining cards in stack R than in stack L, and since there were at least as many “only a” cards in R than in L, the final configuration has more cards in R than in L. e Case 2: The number of L cards containing only the name a is greater than the number of R cards containing only the name a. Then we perform one shuffle with the name a, we end up at the beginning of Case 1 and we are done. In either case, we can finish our inductive step and our proof is complete. [AIME 1992] For how many pairs of consecutive integers in the set {1000, 1001, 1002, ..., 2000}30 16 17 Solutions to Introductory Problems is no carrying required when the two integers are added? Solution: Let n have a decimal representation labc. If one of a,b, or ¢ is 5,6,7, or 8, then there will be carrying when n and n+ 1are added. If6=9 and c #9, or if a = 9 and either b 49 or c #9, there will also be carrying when n and n+ 1 are added If n is not one of the integers described above, then n has one of the forms: labe 1ab9 1a99 1999, where a,b,c € {0,1,2,3,4}. For such n, no carrying will be needed when n and n+1 are added. There are 5°+5?+5+1 = 156 such values of n [AHSME 1994] Nine chairs in a row are to be occupied by six students and Professors Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. These three professors arrive before the six students and decide to choose their chairs so that each professor will be between two students. In how many ways can Professors Alpha, Beta, and Gamma choose their chairs? First Solution: The two end chairs must be occupied by students, so the professors have seven middle chairs from which to choose, with no two adjacent. If these chairs are numbered from 2 to 8, the three chairs can be: (2,4,7), (2,4,8), (2,5,7), (25,8) (2,6,8), (3,5,7), (3,5,8), (3,6,8), (4,6,8) Within each triple, the professors can arrange themselves in 3! ways, so the total number is 10 x 6 = 60 Second Solution: Imagine the six students standing in a row before they are seated. There are 5 spaces between them, each of which may be occupied by at most one of the 3 professors Therefore, there are P(5,3) = 5 x 4 x 3 = 60 ways the professors can select their places Prove that among any 16 distinct positive integers not exceeding 100 there are four different ones, a,b, c,d, such that a+b =e+d.Solutions to Introductory Problems 31 18. Solution: Let a, < a) < +++ < aie denote the 16 numbers. Consider the difference of each pair of those integers. There are (18) = 120 such pairs. Let (a;,aj) denote a pair of numbers with a; > aj. If we have two distinct pairs of numbers (a;,,a;,) and (a;,,a;,) such that a;, — a;, = ai, — ai,, then we get the desired quadruple (a,b,¢,d) = (ai,,@,,4;,4;,) unless a;, = a;,. We say a is bad for the pair of pairs (a;,,a) and (a,a;,) if aj, - a = a— aj, (or 2a = a;, + 4;,). Note that we are done if a number a is bad for two pairs of pairs of numbers. Indeed, if a is bad for (a;,,), (a,a;,) and (a;,,@), (a,a;,), then a;, +a;, = 2a = a;, + ai, Finally, we assume that each a; is bad for at most one pair of pairs of numbers. For each such pair of pairs of numbers, we take one pair of numbers out of consideration. Hence there are no bad numbers anymore. Then we still have at least 120 — 16 = 104 pairs of numbers left. The difference of the numbers in each remaining pair ranges from 1 to 99. By the Pigeonhole Principle, some of these differences have the same value. Assume that in = dj, —4j,, then (aj, ,a;,, @;,,;,) satisfies the conditions of the problem. [AHSME 1989] A child has a set of 96 distinct blocks. Each block is of one of 2 materials (plastic, wood), 3 sizes (small, medium, large), 4 colors (blue, green, red, yellow), and 4 shapes (circle, hexagon, square, triangle). How many blocks in the set are different from the “plastic medium red circle” in exactly two ways? (The “wood medium red square” is such a block.) aj, -4, Solution: For a block to differ from the given block, there is only 1 choice for a different material, 2 choices for a different size, 3 choices for a different color, and 3 choices for a different shape. There are (3) = 6 ways a block can differ from the block in exactly two ways: (l (2 (3 ( ( Material and size: 1-2 = 2 differing blocks. Material and color: 1-3 = 8 differing blocks. Material and shape: 1-3 = 3 differing blocks. Size and color; 2-3 = 6 differing blocks. Size and shape: 2-3 = 6 differing blocks. 4 532 19 20. Solutions to Introductory Problems (6) Color and shape: 3-3 = 9 differing blocks Thus, 2+3+3+6+6+9 = 29 blocks differ from the given block in exactly two ways. [AHSME 1998] Call a 7-digit telephone number dydyd3—dadsdgd7 memorable if the prefix sequence didodg is exactly the same as either of the sequences d4ad5dg or dsd6d7z (possibly both) Assuming that each d; can be any of the ten decimal digits 0,1,2,...,9, find the number of different memorable telephone numbers. First Solution: There are 10,000 ways to write the last four digits dadsded7, and among these there are 10000 — 10 = 9990 for which not all the digits are the same. For each of these, there are exactly two ways to adjoin the three digits didodg to obtain a memorable number. There are ten memorable numbers for which the last four digits are the same, for a total of 2-9990+10 = 19990. Second Solution: Let A denote the set of telephone numbers for which djdodg is the same as dadsdg and let B be the set of telephone numbers for which didodg coincides with dgdgdz. A telephone number dy dod3—dydsdedz belongs to ANB if and only if dy = dy = ds = dy = dg = dg = dy. Hence, n(ANB) = 10 Thus, by the Inclusion-Exclusion Principle, n(AU B) = n(A) + n(B) - n(ANB) = 10°-1-10+ 10-10 -1— 10 = 19990 [AIME 1996] Two of the squares of a 7 x 7 checkerboard are painted yellow, and the rest are painted green. Two color schemes are equivalent if one can be obtained from the other by applying a rotation in the plane of the board. How many inequivalent color schemes are possible? Solution: There are (’) = 1176 ways to select the positions of the yellow squares. Because quarter-turns can be applied to the board, however, there are fewer than 1176 inequivalent color schemes. Color schemes in which the two yellow squares are not diametrically opposed appear in four equivalent forms Color schemes in which the two yellow squares are diametricallySolutions to Introductory Problems 33 49. opposed appear in two equivalent forms, and there are 49>! = 24 such pairs of yellow squares. Thus the number of inequivalent color schemes is 1176-24 24 HTT 300, 7 12 [ARML 1999] In how many ways can one arrange the numbers 21, 31, 41, 51, 61, 71, and 81 such that the sum of every four consecutive numbers is divisible by 3? Solution: Since we only need to consider the problem modulo 3, we rewrite the numbers 21, 31, 41, 51, 61, 71, 81 as 0, 1, 2, 0, 1,2, 0. Suppose that a),ay,...,a7 is a required arrangement. We observe that 0 = (a, + a2 +43 + a4) + (aq + 45 + a6 + 7) = (a) + ay +++ +47) +445 (0414240414240) +045 ay (mod 3). Thus aj,a2,a3 must be an arrangement of 0,1,2 as ay+a2+a3 = a,+a2+a3+a4 = 0 (mod 3). Since aj+a2+a3+¢4 = ay+a3-+a4-+a5 = 0 (mod 3), we have a, = as (mod 3). Similarly, we can prove that the order of a5,a¢,a7 is uniquely determined by a1, a2,a3. Thus we have 3 x 2° x 3!= 144 arrangements. {AIME 1993] Let S be a set with six elements. In how many different ways can one select two not necessarily distinct subsets of S so that the union of the two subsets is S? The order of the selection does not matter; for example the pair of sub- sets {a,c}, {b,¢,d,e, f} represents the same selection as the pair {b,c,d,e, f}, {a,c} Solution: In order that AU B = S, for each element s of S exactly one of the following three statements is true: s€Aands¢B s¢AandseB s€AandseB Hence if $ has n elements, there are 3” ways to choose the sets A and B. Except for pairs with A = B, this total counts each pair of sets twice. Since AU B = S with A= B occurs if and only if A= B =S, the number of pairs of subsets of S' whose union is Sis Bead 2 +1, which is 365 when n= 6.34 23 24 Solutions to Introductory Problems [AIME 2001] A set of positive numbers has the triangle property if it has three distinct elements that are the lengths of the sides of a triangle whose area is positive. Consider sets {4,5,6,...,n} of consecutive positive integers, all of whose ten-element subsets have the triangle property. What is the largest possible value of n? Solution: The set {4,5,9, 14, 23, 37, 60,97, 157, 254} is a ten- element subset of {4,5,6,...,254} that does not have the triangle property. Let N’ be the smallest integer for which {4,5,6,..., N} has a ten-element subset that lacks the triangle property. Let {a1,a2,43,...,d19} be such a subset, with a) < a2 < a3 < +--+ < ayo. Because none of its three-element subsets define triangles, the following must be true: N > ao > do + ag > (ag +47) + ag = 2ag + a7 > 2(az +45) + 47 = 3a7 4 Qag > 3(ag +45) + 2ag = 5ag + 3a5 > 8a5 + 5a4 > 1344 + 8a3 > 2las + 13az > 34a2 + lay > 34-5421-4= 254 Thus the largest. possible value of n is N — 1 = 253. This is yet another application of the Fibonacei sequence. [MOSP 1997] Let A and B be disjoint sets whose union is the set of natural numbers. Show that for every natural number n there exist distinct a,b > n such that {a,b,a+b}CA or {a,b,a +0} CB. Solution: — We shall construct numbers a,b > n such that a+b is in the same set as a and 6. First assume that |A| is finite and that m is its largest element. Then n + 1,n+ 2, and 2n+3 = (nt1)+(n+2) are all in B for all n > m. Consequently, we assume that both A and B are infinite sets. We approach indirectly, Assume that there is a positive integer nsuch that for any a,b > n, {a,b,a+} ¢ Aand {a,b,a+6} ¢ B We now choose x,y, and z in A such that 2 > y > z > n and y—2 > n. Thisis possible since A is infinite and thus unboundedSolutions to Introductory Problems 35 25. Then {x2 +y,y+2,2+2}C B. But then y— z has no place to go. Hence our assumption was wrong and we are done. [AIME 1986] The increasing sequence 1,3, 4,9, 10,12, 13,... con- sists of all those positive integers which are powers of 3 or sums of distinct powers of 3. Find the 100" term of this sequence (where Lis the 1% term, 3 is the 2°¢ term, and so on). First Solution: If we use only the first six non-negative integral powers of 3, namely 1,3,9,27,81 and 243, then we can form only 63 terms, since ()+Qe+G) Consequently, the next highest power of 3, namely 729, is also needed. After the first 63 terms of the sequence the next largest ones will have 729 but not 243 as a summand. There are 32 of these, since (3) + (7) +---+ (2) = 32, bringing the total number of terms to 95. Since we need the 100" term, we must next include 243 and omit 81. Doing so, we find that the 96", 97", ..., 100%" terms are: 7294243, 729+243+1, 729+243+3, 729+243+3+1, and 729 + 243 +9 = 981 1 = 63. Second Solution: Note that a positive integer is a term of this sequence if and only if its base 3 representation consists only of 0’s and 1's. Therefore, we can set up a one-to-one correspondence between the positive integers and the terms of this sequence by representing both with binary digits (0’s and 1's), first in base 2 and then in base 3: T= la = I~ al 2= 102) = lg) =3 3= lla) = Hg) =4 4 = 100(2) => 100(3) =9 5 = 101(2) => 1013) = 1036 26. Solutions to Introductory Problems This is a correspondence between the two sequences in the order given, that is, the k*" positive integer is made to correspond to the k* sum (in increasing order) of distinct powers of 3. ‘This is because, when the binary numbers are written in increasing order, they are still in increasing order when interpreted in any other base. (If you can explain why this is true when interpreted in base 10, you should be able to explain it in base 3 as well.) Therefore, to find the 100'" term of the sequence, we need only look at the 100" line of the above correspondence: 100 = 11001002) => 11001003) = 981. [AIME 1997] Every card in a deck has a picture of one shape — circle, square, or triangle, which is painted in one of three colors — red, blue, or green. Furthermore, each color is applied in one of three shades — light, medium, or dark. The deck has 27 cards, with every shape-color-shade combination represented. A set of three cards from the deck is called complementary if all of the following statements are true: (a) Either each of the three cards has a different shape or all three of the cards have the same shape. (b) Either each of the three cards has a different color or all three of the cards have the same color. (c) Either each of the three cards has a different shade or all three of the cards have the same shade How many different complementary three-card sets are there? Solution: Consider any pair of cards from the deck. We show that there is exactly one card that can be added to this pair to make a complementary set. If the cards in the pair have the same shape, then the third card must also have this shape, while if the cards have different shapes, then the third card must have the one shape that differs from them. In eith , the shape on the third card is uniquely determined. Similar reasoning shows that the color and the shade on the third card are also uniquely determined. The third card, determined by the first two, is never one of the first two cards. Thus we can count the number of complementary sets by counting the number of pairs of cards and then dividing by 3, because each complementary set. is countedSolutions to Introductory Problems 37 ~ three times by this procedure. The number of complementary sets is [China 1990] At a math camp, every m students share exactly one common friend, m > 3. (If A is a friend of B, then B is a friend of A. Also, A is not his own friend.) Suppose person P has the largest number of friends. Determine what that number is. First Solution: — First note that every student has a friend. Assume that students A, A2,...,Ag are friends of each other, where k is a positive integer, 2 << k < m. Then there is a student A;,4, who is a common friend to all of the students A;, 1 3, student C has at least 2 friends among the students Aj, Ay,... Am4i- But this impossible by our argument in Case 1 Overall, we showed that this camp only has the m+ 1 students Ay, Ao,...;Am41 and they are all friends of each other. Hence the desired number is m38 28. Solutions to Introductory Problems Second Solution: First we observe that P must have at least m friends, since for any set of m students, their common friend has at least m friends (namely, those m students). Now we prove that P cannot have more than m friends. Assume the contrary. Let S be the set of P’s friends, and let n = |S]. We have by assumption n > m+ 1. We claim that for each (m — 1)-element subset S’ of S, there exists a unique person Qs: € S who is a common friend of all the people in 9’. Consider any such subset 5’. Adding P to this set gives a set of size m, and thus by the given there exists a unique person Q who is a friend of P and all of the members of S’. We claim that this Q is the Qs: that we want. Indeed, Q € S' since by definition, S is the set of all friends of P Now we claim that for any two distinct (m—1)-element subsets Sy and So of S, Qs, # Qs,. Assume for a contradiction that this is not the case, that is, there exist $1, 52 C S with Qs, = Qs, Take any m-element. subset of S; U Sy. Then the people in this set have two mutual friends, Qs, and P, contradicting the given It follows that each (m— 1)-element subset S’ corresponds to a different person Qs. Now, the number of m — 1-element subsets of Sis n\n). m-1)=\2)7™ since n >m-+1 and m > 3. But n= |S be the same, a contradiction. [AHSME 1989] Suppose that 7 boys and 13 girls line up in a row Let S be the number of places in the row where a boy and a girl are standing next to each other. For example, for the row GBBGGGBGBGGGBGBGGBGG we have S$ = 12. Find the average value of S (if all possible orders of these 20 people are considered) , so two of the Q’s must First Solution: Suppose that John and Carol are two of the people. For ¢ = 1,2,...,19, let J; and C; be the numbers of orderings (out of all 20!) in which the i” and (i+ 1)** persons are John and Carol, or Carol and John, respectively. Then J; = Cj = 18! is the number of orderings of the remaining persons For i = 1,2,...,19, let Nj be the number of times a boy-girlSolutions to Introductory Problems 39 i or girl-boy pair occupies positions i and i+ 1. Since there are 7 boys and 13 girls, Nj = 7-13 -(J; + Cj). Thus the average value of S is Ny +No+N3+...+Nig _ 19[7-13-(18!4 189] _ 91 20! 20! ~ 10 Second Solution: In general, suppose there are k boys and n—k girls, For i= 1,2,...,n—1 let Aj be the probability that there is a boy-girl pair in positions (i, i+1) in the line. Since there is either 0 or 1 pair in (i,i + 1), Aj is also the expected number of pairs in these positions. By symmetry, all A;’s are the same (or note that the argument below is independent of i). Thus, the answer is (n — 1) Aj. We may consider the boys indistinguishable and likewise the girls. (Why?) Then an order is just a sequence of k Bs and n—k Gs. To have a pair at (i,i-+1) we must have BG or GB in those positions, and the remaining n—2 positions must have k— 1 boys and n —k —1 girls. Thus there are 2(?77) seque with a pair at (i,i +1). Since there are (/}) sequences, the answer is (n= 1)2(-7) _ 2k(n =k) a 7 Thus, when n = 20 and k = 7, the answer is (2:7-13)/20 = 91/10 [AIME 1996] A bored student walks down a hall that contains a row of closed lockers, numbered 1 to 1024. He opens the locker numbered 1, and then alternates between skipping and opening each closed locker thereafter. When he reaches the end of the hall, the student turns around and starts back. He opens the first closed locker he encounters, and then alternates between skipping and opening each closed locker thereafter. The student continues wandering back and forth in this manner until every locker is open. What is the number of the last locker he opens? (n-1)A; = First Solution: Suppose that there are 2* lockers in the row, and let L, be the number of the last locker opened. After the student makes his first pass along the row, there are 2*~! closed lockers left. These closed lockers all have even numbers and are in descending order from where the student is standing. Now, renumber the closed lockers from 1 to 2*~1, starting from the end40 30. Solutions to Introductory Problems where the student is standing. Notice that the locker originally numbered n (where n is even) is now numbered 2*—! + 1 — 3 Thus, because Ly—1 is the number of the last locker opened with this new numbering, we have Le +1 Solving for Ly we find Ly = 42-2Ly-1 Iterate this recursion once to obtain Tp = 2% 42 —2(2%-1 42-2049) = ALp_2 — 2 (1) When there are 1024 = 2" lockers to start with, the last locker to be opened is numbered Ly. Apply (1) repeatedly to Lo = 1 to find that Ly = 4Ly) —-2 = 2, Ly = 6, Le = 22, Lg = 86, and Tio = 342. Second Solution: Follow the given solution to the recursion (1), which can be written in the form Because Lo = 1 and L; = 2, it follows that 9 1-=)4% — ifkiseven, Ly = 3 2-2 4S ifkisodd These formulas may be combined to yield = fg!) 49 k= 3 (4 $ +2) for all nonnegative k. In particular, L4) = 342. Note: How would the solution change if there were 1000 lockers in the hall? [AIME 1995] Let n = 2313!°, How many positive integer divisors of n? are less than n but do not divide n? First Solution: Let n = pg’, where p and q are distinctSolutions to Introductory Problems Al BL primes. Then n? = p?"q25, so n? has (2r +1)(2s + 1) factors. For each factor less than n, there is a corresponding factor greater than n. By excluding the factor n, we see that there must be (Qr+1(2s+1) -1 2 factors of n? that are less than n. Because n has (r + 1)(s + 1) factors (including n itself), and because every factor of n is also a factor of n?, there are 2Irst+r+s @strts—[(r+1(s+1)-=rs factors of n? that are less than n but not factors of n. When r=31 and s=19, there are rs = 589 such factors. Second Solution: (By Chengde Feng) A positive integer divisor d of n? is less than n but does not divide n if and only if Biragh—o if ae < 3°, d= { g3l-agl9+h if gas, 3b where a and b are integers such that |< a< 31 and 1 1 do there exist a number m that can be written in the form a) +--+ ay (with a € {]},a2 € {1,2},...,an € {1,-..,n}) in (n — 1)! or more ways? First Solution: Note that for n = 1,2,3,4, we may choose m = 1,3,5,7, respectively. Note that each of the ways to write the number m in the formSolutions to Introductory Problems 43 a) +++: + ay (with a, € {1},a2 € {1,2},...,an € {1,....n}) requires a different ordered (n — 1)-tuple (a1,q2,..-,@n—1)- Fur- thermore, there are only (n — 1)! such (n — 1)-tuples, so each of those must work for m; i.e., we must have 2n— Sl+l+-:+lin>m Sees n= or else there would be no valid expression for m with a, = a2 = += 1, and also m>14+24$--4(n—-1 415" (2-1) ~_ th or else there would be no valid expression for m with a, = 1,42 = 2,...,dn—1 =n — 1. Combining the two inequalities above, we have -1 An —1) > R@=) a) orn <4. Hence n = 1,2,3,4 are the only n satisfying the conditions of the problem. Second Solution: (David Vincent) For each n, define the polynomial Sale) = ala 2) (ep er peta”). It is clear that f,.(a) isa 1+24---+n = 240 degree polynomial We can write (ut) Fale) = fart + fae? otf, ng 2G Then the coefficient of the term x” in f, (x), [2"](fn(x)) = frm, is equal to the number of ways that m can be written in the form ay +--+ ay with ay € {1}, a2 € {1,2},...,4n € {1,...,n}. For convenience, we may extend this definition to the other powers of x by letting frm = 0 for all m not yet mentioned.44 Solutions to Introductory Problems We have file) =2, folx) = 2? 42°, f(a) = 29 + Qa? + 20° 4 2 fa(v) = a4 4 30° + 50° + 6x7 + 508 4 3e° 4 2 It follows that for n = 1,2,3,4,m = 1; m=2orm=3;m=4 or m= 5; m= 7, work, respectively. It is not difficult to see that there are (1+2---+n)-—n+1= a@=)) 41 terms in f,(x). For n > 5, it is also not difficult to see that fn-1(x) has (n=H(n-2) Hh terms. Since fn() = fn—i(w)(w+2?+--- a”), for positive integers m, [e"|(fa(@)) = fa-iym=1 t+ fn-tym-2 +++ + fr-iym—n nin) < > fa-aa = fna() = (n= 34. [AIME 1986] Let the sum of a set of numbers be the sum of its elements. Let S be a set of positive integers, none greater than 15. Suppose no two disjoint subsets of S have the same sum. What is the largest sum a set S with these properties can have? Solution: First we show that S contains at most 5 elements. Suppose otherwise. Then $ has at least (?) + (9) + (9) +()) or 56 subsets of 4 or fewer members. ‘The sum of each of these subsets is at most 54 (since 15 + 14 + 13 + 12 = 54); hence, by the Pigeonhole Principle, at least two of these sums are equal. If the subsets are disjoint, we are done; if not, then the removal of the common element(s) yields the desired contradiction. On the other hand, it is not difficult to show that the set S’ = {15, 14,13, 11,8} satisfies the conditions of the problem The sum of S’ is 61. Hence the set S we seek is a 5-element set with a sum of at least 61. Let S = {a,b,c,d,e} with a 4) boxes. Each time, Mr. Fat is allowed to pick two boxes, take one candy bar from each of the two boxes, and put those candy bars into a third box. Determine if it is always possible to put all the candy bars into one box Solution: It is always possible to put all the candy bars into one box. We will prove our statement by induction on m, the number of candy bars. For the base case m = 4, there are at most 4 nonempty boxes. We disregard all the other empty boxes and consider all the possible initial distributions: (1) (,1,1,1) (2) (1,2,1,0) (8) (2,2,0,0) (4) (1,3,0,0) For distribution (1), we proceed as follows: (1,1, 1,1) + (3, 1,0,0) + (2,0,2,0) > (1,0, 1,2) > (0,0, 0,4) It is easy to see that all the other initial distributions are covered in the above sequence of operations. Thus the base case is proved Now we assume that the statement is true for some positive integer m > 4. If we are given m+ 1 candy bars, we mark one of them and called it special. We first ignore the special candy bar and consider only the other m candy bars. By the induction hypothesis, we can put all m candy bars into one box. If this box also contains the special piece, we are done. If not, we pick two empty boxes and proceed as follows: (1, m, 0,0) — (0, m= 1, 2,0) + (0,m = 2, 1,2) — (2,m = 3,0,2) > (1,m = 1,0,1) + (0,m+1,0,0) Now all the candy bars are in one box and our induction is complete46 Solutions to Introductory Problems 36. Determine, with proof, if it is possible to arrange 1,2,...,1000 in a row such that the average of any pair of distinct numbers is not located in between the two numbers. Solution: We claim that that it is possible to arrange 1,2,...,n in a row such that the average of any pair of distinct numbers is not located in between the two numbers. We first prove that this is true for n = 2” for all positive integers m. We induct on m. The base m= 1 is trivial Now we assume that we can arrange 1, positive integer m, ina row (a1, @,...,d2m) such that the average of any pair of distinct numbers is not located in between the two numbers. It is not difficult to -,2™, for some e that (bi, bo, ome) = (2a, = 1, 2a —1,...,2a9m — 1, 2ay,2ay,..., 2am) is an arrangement of the numbers 1,2,...,2'+1 satisfying the conditions of the problem. Indeed, the average of a pair of numbers bj and 6; with either 1 3) be a regular n-sided polygon with O as its center Triangular regions OA;Aiy1, 1 3) colors such that adjacentSolutions to Introductory Problems AT 38 regions are colored in different colors. Let pp, denote the number of such colorings. We want to find pi2,4. ‘There are k ways to color the region OA; As, and then k — 1 ways to color regions OA»A3, OA3Aq and so on. We have to be careful about the coloring of the region OA, Aj. It is possible that it has the same color as that of region OA, Ay. But then, we simply end up with a legal coloring for n — 1 regions by viewing region OA, Az as one region. This is a clear bijection between this special kind of illegal colorings of n regions to legal colorings of n—1 regions. Hence pa, = k(k —1)""! — pn, Note that Ps,k = k(k — 1)(k — 2). It follows that: Pn = k(k = 17) = kk = 1"? + (k= 18 = + (=1)~4k(k = 18 + (-1)"Sk(k = 1)(k — 2) (k= 1)" + (-1)"4(k = D8 =k- 1+(-1) + (-1)“Sk(k = 1)(k = 2) = (k-1)" + (-1)"(k — 1)? + (- I)" k(k — (hk — 2) = (k= 1" + (-1)"(k = U[(k = 1)? = k(k - 2)] = (k= )" + (-1)"(k- 1) Hence pi2,4 = 3!* +3 = 531, 444 legal ways to color this regular dodecagon ‘There are 2n people at a party. Each person has an even number of friends at the party. (Here friendship is a mutual relationship.) Prove that there are two people who have an even number of common friends at the party Solution: Assume for a contradiction that every two of the people at the party share an odd number of friends. Consider any person P. Let A be the set of P’s friends, and let B be the set containing everyone else. Observe that since |A| is even and the total number of people at the party is 2n, |B| is odd. Consider any person Q in B. By definition of B, Q is not a friend of P. By assumption, Q shares an odd number of friends with P, so Q has an odd number of friends in A. Since the total number of friends of Q is even, Q must also have an odd number of friends in B Now, summing the number of friends in B over all the Q’s in B, we should obtain twice the number of friendships among people48 40. Solutions to Introductory Problems in B. But the sum is odd, since as noted previously, |B] is odd This is a contradiction, and hence two of the people at the party must share an even number of common friends. Note: One can show that for every person P at the party there exists a person Q who has an even number of common friends with P at the party, Indeed, let sets A and B be as in the solution. The set B is non-empty, since |B| is odd. ‘There must be a person Q who has an even number of friends in B. Then Q must also have an even number of friends in A, In order to justify this stronger statement we did not use a proof by contradiction. [AIME 1997] How many different 4 x 4 arrays whose entries are all 1's and —1's have the property that the sum of the entries in each row is 0 and the sum of the entries in each column is 0? Solution: Each row and each column must contain two 1/s and two —1's, so there are (3) = 6 ways to fill the first row. There are also six ways to fill the second row. Of these, one way has four matches with the first row, four ways have two matches with the first row, and one way has no matches with the first row. The first case allows one way to fill the third row, the second case allows two ways to fill the third row, and the third case allows six ways to fill the third row. Once the first three rows are filled, the fourth row can be filled in only one way. Thus there are 6(1-1+4-2+1-6) = 90 ways to fill the array to satisfy the conditions. (IMO Shortlist 1996] A square of dimensions (n — 1) x (n — 1) is divided into (n — 1)? unit squares in the usual manner. Each of the n? vertices of these squares is to be colored red or blue Find the number of different colorings such that each unit square has exactly two red vertices. (Two coloring schemes are regarded as different if at least one vertex is colored differently in the two schemes.) Solution: Let the vertices in the bottom row be assigned an arbitrary coloring, and suppose that some two adjacent vertices have the same color. Then it is not difficult to see that the coloring of the remaining vertices are fixed. There are 2” — 2Solutions to Introductory Problems 49 Al. 42. colorings of the bottom row with the property that some two adjacent vert: have the same color (as there are a total of 2” colorings and 2 ways alternates the coloring of adjacent: vertices. If the vertices of the bottom row are colored alternately, this property must be true for each of the other rows, as well. Hence each row can be colored in 2 ways for a total of 2” ways. Therefore the answer is 2" — 2+ 2" = 2"+! — 2 ways satisfying the conditions of the problem. Sixty-four balls are separated into several piles. At each step we are allowed to apply the following operation. Pick two piles, say pile A with p balls and pile B with q balls and p > q, and then remove g balls from pile A and put them in pile B. Prove that it is possible to put all the balls into one pile. Solution: We use induction to prove that it is possible to put all the n balls into one pile ifn = 2” for some nonnegative integer m. The base cases m = 0 and m = 1 are trivial. Now we assume that it is possible to put all the 2™ balls into one pile for some positive positive integer m. We will show that it is possible to put 2”+! balls into one pile. We first note that there are an even number of piles each containing an odd number of balls. We match those piles and apply the operation to each pair. Hence after finitely many operations, each of the piles contains an even number of balls. We then bind each pair of balls in each pile to form a super ball. Hence we obtain a certain number of piles of 2” super balls. By our induction hypothesis, we can put these super balls into one pile. Hence all the 2"*? balls are now in one pile and our induction is complete. [USAMO 1999 submission, Richard Stong] A game of solitaire is played with a finite number of nonnegative integers. On the first. move the player designates one integer as large, and replaces another integer by any nonnegative integer strictly smaller than the designated large integer. On subsequent steps play is similar, except that integer replaced must be the one designated as large on the previous play. Prove that in some finite number of steps play must end50 43. 44. Solutions to Introductory Problems Solution: Let the integers at any time be a1, a2,...,@,, and let ¢ be the index of the integer chosen as large in the previous step. Define the score of the position to be S = Dj, ai. At any step we will choose a new large integer a¢: (which currently contributes to S but will not after the move), and we will replace ag (which currently does not contribute to $) with something smaller than av (which will contribute to the new S). Thus S is decreased by at least 1 on every move. Since S starts with a finite value and S > 0, play must stop in a finite number of moves [USAMO 2000 submission, Cecil Rousseau] Given S C {1,2, ,n}, we are allowed to modify it in any one of the following ways (a) if 1 ZS, add the element 1; (b) ifn €S, delete the element n; (c) for l {n}, starting with @ and ending with {n}, in which each of the 2” subsets of {1,2,...,n} appears exactly once. Prove that n = 2” — | for some m. Solution: Let m be the sum of the set elements. Whenever operation (a) or (c) is performed, m increases by 1, and whenever (b) is performed, m decreases by n. If (b) is performed d times in a sequence of k set modifications that starts and ends with the same set S, then (k —d) — dn = 0, that is, k = d(n +1). Since adding {n} + 9 to the presumed sequence gives 0 {1} 4 {2} 4--- > {n} 9, a cycle of length k = 2", we have (n + 1) | 2”. Thus n must be of the form 2” — 1 for some m a; > a2 > +++ > aj, the sum of the alternating sums for each such pair of subsets is given by (a) — a2 +--+ taj) +(n — a, a2 —-.-Faj;)=n. And since there are 2" subsets of {1,2,...,n} and, consequently, 2"-1 such pairs of subsets, the required sum is n2”-!. Finally, taking n = 7, we obtain 448 [AIME 1992] In a game of Chomp, two players alternately take “bites” from a 5-by-7 grid of unit squares. ‘To take a bite, the player chooses one of the remaining squares, then removes (“eats”) all squares found in the quadrant defined by the left edge (extended upward) and the lower edge (extended rightward) of the chosen square. For example, the bite determined by the shaded square in the diagram would remove the shaded square and the four squares marked by xSolutions to Introductory Problems 53 (The squares with two or more dotted edges have been removed from the original board in previous moves.) The object of the game is to make one’s opponent take the last bite. The diagram shows one of the many subsets of the set of 35 unit squares that can occur during the game of Chomp. How many different subsets are there in all? Include the full board and the empty board in your count. Solution: At any stage of the game, the uneaten squares will form columns of non-increasing heights as we read from left to right It is not hard to show that this condition is not only necessary, but is also sufficient for a given configuration of squares to occur in a game. (The reader should prove this fact.) Moreover, any such configuration can be completely described by the twelve- step polygonal path that runs from the upper left to the lower right of the original board, forming the boundary between the eaten and uneaten squares. This polygonal boundary can be described by a twelve-letter sequence of V's and H's. Such a sequence contains seven H's, where each H represents the top of an uneaten column (or bottom of a completely eaten one) and five V/s, where each V represents a one-unit drop in vertical height in moving from the top of an uneaten col- umn to the top of an adjacent, but shorter column. For ex- ample, the state that appears in the diagram accompanying the problem is described by HHHVHVVHHHVY, while the sequences HHHH HHHV / and VVVVVHHHHHHH54 47. Solutions to Introductory Problems describe the full board and the empty board, respectively. ‘Thus the number of possible subsets is (1?) = 792 Note: The game of Chomp is due to David Gale, and was introduced (and named) by Martin Gardner in his Scientific American column “Mathematical Games”. The column reap- peared in Gardner’s collection Knotted Doughnuts. Each square of a 1998 x 2002 chess board contains either 0 or 1 such that the total number of squares containing | is odd in each row and each column. Prove that the number of white unit squares containing 1 is even Solution: Let (i,j), 1 y5-1,5 f=1 j=l is the sum of all the numbers in the 999 odd rows, i.e., Roda is odd as it is the sum of 999 odd numbers. Likewise, sum of all the numbers in even columns 1001 1998 Coven = > YP a25,i j= i=l is also odd as it is the sum of 1001 odd numbers. Let B denote the set. of all the black squares in the even columns, and let $(B) denote the sum of the numbers in the squares in set B. Note that the numbers in each of the squares in B appears exactly once in the sum Roaa. Note also that the numbers in each of the squares in B appear exactly once in the sum Ceyen. Finally, note that each of the numbers in the white square appears exactly once in combined sum Roaa + Ceven. Thus the total of the numbers of the white unit squares is Roaa + Ceven — 25(B), which is even. Therefore the number of white unit squares containing 1 is even. [AIME 1989] Let S' be a subset of {1,2,3,... , 1989} such that no two members of $ differ by 4 or 7. What is the largest number of elements S can have?Solutions to Introductory Problems 55 Solution: We first show that, given any set of 11 consecutive integers from {1,2,3,..., 1989}, at most five of these 1] can be elements of 8. We prove this fact for the set T= {1,2,3,..., 11}, but the same proof works for any set of 11 consecutive integers. Consider the following partition of T, where each subset was formed so that it can contribute at most one element to S: {1,5} {2,9} {3,7} {4,11} {6,10} {8} ()) If it were possible to have 6 elements of 7’ in S, then each of the sets in (1) would have to contribute exactly one element. That this is impossible is shown by the following chain of implications: 8ESS1ESS5ESSIESS2ESS6ESSWESS B8ESSTESSIUESSAESS8ES. With the aid of (1), or otherwise, it is easy to find a 5-element subset of 7 that satisfies the key property of S (i.e, no two numbers differ by 4 or 7). One such set is T’ = {1,3,4,6, 9} We also find (perhaps to our surprise) that 7” has the remarkable property of allowing for a periodic continuation. That is, if I denotes the set of integers, then S' = {k+1In|k ET! and n€ I} also has the property that no two elements in the set differ by 4 or 7. Moreover, since 1989 = 180-11 +9, it is clear that S cannot have more than 181-5 = 905 elements. Because the largest element in T’ is 9, it follows that the set S$ =S'N{1,2,3,...,1989} has 905 elements and hence shows that the upper bound of 905 on the size of the desired set can be attained. This completes the argument. Note: The reader may wish to find other 5-clement subsets of {1,2,3,...,11} that exhibit the key property of 8. Which of these subsets can be used, as above, to generate a maximal S?56 49. Solutions to Introductory Problems The reader is also encouraged to explore similar problems with other pairs (triples, etc.) of integers in place of 4 and 7, and to find the appropriate motivations for the choice of 11 as the size of the blocks of integers considered in the above solution [USAMO 2002 submission, Zuming Feng] A class of fifteen boys and fifteen girls is seated around a round table. Their teacher wishes to pair up the students and hand out fifteen tests—one test to each pair. As the teacher is preparing to select the pairs and hand out the tests, he wonders to himself, “How many seating arrangements would allow me to match up boy/girl pairs sitting next to each other without having to ask any student to change his or her seat?” Answer the teacher's question. (Two seating arrangements are regarded as being the same if one can be obtained from the other by a rotation.) Solution: We call a pairing good if each contains a boy and a girl. It is clear that there are 15! good pairings. For each good pairing, there are 14! x 2!° ways to arrange the students around the table. Such a seating arrangement is called a good working relation. Hence there are a total of 14! x 15! x 2!° good working relations. We call a seating arrangement good if it allows the teacher to match up boy/girl pairs sitting next to each other without having to ask any student to change his or her seat. We want to evaluate x, the number of good arrangements. ‘There are two types of good seating arrangements: (a) A good arrangement that generates exactly one good working relation. This means that there are at least two boys sitting next to each other in the arrangement. These arrangements are called good arrangements of the first type. Let #1 denote the total number of good arrangements of the first type. Es A good arrangement that generates exactly two good working relations. ‘This means that boys and girls are sitting alter- nately. These arrangements are called good arrangements of the second type. Let #2 denote the total number of good arrangements of the second type. Then x) = 14! x 15! as there are 14! ways to arrange all the boys around the deskSolutions to Introductory Problems 57 and there are 15! ways to arrange all the girls each in a gap between two neighboring boys We have « = 1 + 2, where 2 = 14! x 15! and xy + Qe = 14! x 15) x 2! Therefore « = 14!. 15!(2!5 — 1). [Baltic Way 1999] Two squares on an 8 x 8 chessboard are called touching if they have at least one common vertex. Determine if it is possible for a king to begin in some square and visit all the squares exactly once in such a way that all moves except the first are made into squares touching an even number of squares already visited. Solution: It is not possible for the king to visit all the squares. Assume for a contradiction that there exists a path such that all moves except the first are made into squares touching an even number of squares already visited. Clearly, the first move is made into a square touching exactly one square already visited, namely the starting square. Summing the number of touching squares previously visited over all the moves, we therefore obtain an odd number. On the other hand, every pair of touching squares is counted exactly once in this sum, by the member of the pair that was visited second. Thus, the sum is equal to the total number of touching pairs. But this number is even, since the numbers of touching pairs oriented north-south and east-west are equal, as are the numbers of touching pairs oriented northeast-southwest and northwest-southeast. Thus we have a contradiction, and no path exists [St. Petersburg 1988] A total of 119 residents live in a building with 120 apartments. We call an apartment overpopulated if there are at least 15 people living there. Every day the inhabitants of an overpopulated apartment have a quarrel and each goes off to a different apartment in the building (so they can avoid each other). Is it true that this process will necessarily be completed someday? Solution: Let pi, p: let a; denote the number of residents in apartment pj. We .,pi20 denote the 120 apartments, andSolutions to Introductory Problems consider the quantity = 4i(a1—1) , a2(a2—1) @)20(a120 — 1) i a tt (Assume that all the residents in an apartment shake hand with each other at the beginning of the day, then quantity S denotes the number of the handshakes in that day.) If all a; < 15, then the process is completed and we are done. If not, without. loss of generality, we assume that a; > 15 and that the inhabitants in p; go off to different apartments in the building. Assume that they go to apartments pj,,Piz,-.-Pi,, On the next day, the quantity is changed by an amount of a(a—1 Gj, + jg to + dig, ee which is positive as a3, taj, to +a;,, < 9-a, < 119-15 = 104 and ax(@ = 1) 15 x M4 2 -— 2 Hence the quantity is decreasing during this process. On the other hand, S starts as a certain finite number and S is nonnegative. Therefore this process has to be completed someday. = 1054 Solutions to Advanced ProblemsSolutions to Advanced Problems 61 1. [AIME 1985] In a tournament each player played exactly one game against each of the other players. In each game the winner was awarded 1 point, the loser got 0 points, and each of the two players earned 1/2 point if the game was a tie. After the completion of the tournament, it was found that exactly half of the points earned by each player were earned in games against the ten players with the least number of points. (In particular, of the ten lowest scoring players earned half of her/his points against the other nine of the ten). What was the total number of players in the tournament? Solution: Assume that a total of n players participated in the tournament. We will obtain two expressions in n: one by considering the total number of points gathered by all of the players, and one by considering the number of points gathered by the losers (10 lowest scoring contestants) and those gathered by the winners (other n — 10 contestants) separately. To obtain the desired expressions, we will use that fact that if k players played against one another, then they played a total of k(& —1)/2 games, resulting in a total of k(&—1)/2 points to be shared among them. In view of the last observation, the n players gathered a total of n(n —1)/2 points in the tournament. Similarly, the losers had 10 - 9/2 or 45 points in games among themselves; since this accounts for half of their points, they must have had a total of 90 points. In games among themselves the n — 10 winners similarly gathered (n — 10)(n — 11)/2 points; this also accounts for only half of their total number of points (the other half coming from games against the losers), so their total was (n — 10)(n — 11) points. Thus we have the equation n(n —1)/2 = 90+ (n — 10)(n - 11), which is equivalent to n® — 41n+ 400 = 0. Since the left member of this equation may be factored as (n — 16)(n — 25), it follows that n = 16 or 25. We discard the first of these in view of the following observation: if there were only 16 players in the tournament, then there would have been only 6 winners, and the total of their points would have been 30 points,62 Solutions to Advanced Problems resulting in an average of 5 points for each of them. This is less than the 90/10 or 9 points gathered, on the average, by each of the losers! Therefore, n = 25; i.e., there were 25 players in the tournament Finally we show that such a tournament exists. Since n = 25, we have 15 winners and 10 losers. Every game that the winners play among themselves results in a tie, giving each winner (15 —1)/2 = 7 points from games played with other winners Likewise, all the games played among the losers result in ties, giving each of the 10 losers 4.5 points. For the ten games played by each winner against the losers, six are wins, two are losses, and two are ties, giving the winners another 7 points from games played with losers. This gives each loser three wins, nine losses, and three ties in games against winners, adding up to 4.5 more points. Thus each of the 25 players receives exactly half of his/her points in games against the losers, which is what we want. . [USAMO 1999 submission, Titu Andreescu] Let n be an odd integer greater than 1. Find the number of permutations p of the set {1,2,...,n} for which ne Ip(L) ~ UI + [p(2) = 2] +--+ [p(n) = nl = Solution: We have Ip(L) — 1] + |p(2) = 2] +--+ [p(n) = n| =+lt142424---4n4£n. The maximum of |p(1)—1| + |p(2)—2| + «+++ |p(n)=n| is a(-1-2-- -25t) see 2 2 2 3 (4 + +n) n-1\n-1 n+3 =-(1+—— |] — —— (et) Let p(2#+) =k. We must have {p0),00) oo (23) be . of