Olympiad problems

2021 Taiwan TST Round 2, 1

Tags: IMO Shortlist , combinatorics , IMO Shortlist 2020 , quadrilateral , colorings , partition , Gerhard Woeginger

In a regular 100-gon, 41 vertices are colored black and the remaining 59 vertices are colored white. Prove that there exist 24 convex quadrilaterals $Q_{1}, \ldots, Q_{24}$ whose corners are vertices of the 100-gon, so that [list] [*] the quadrilaterals $Q_{1}, \ldots, Q_{24}$ are pairwise disjoint, and [*] every quadrilateral $Q_{i}$ has three corners of one color and one corner of the other color. [/list]

2014 IMO Shortlist, N3

Tags: IMO 2014 , IMO , IMO Shortlist , Gerhard Woeginger , combinatorics , optimization

For each positive integer $n$, the Bank of Cape Town issues coins of denomination $\frac1n$. Given a finite collection of such coins (of not necessarily different denominations) with total value at most most $99+\frac12$, prove that it is possible to split this collection into $100$ or fewer groups, such that each group has total value at most $1$.

2020 IMO Shortlist, A5

Tags: algebra , IMO Shortlist , IMO Shortlist 2020 , polynomial , algorithm , lagrange s interpolation , Gerhard Woeginger

A magician intends to perform the following trick. She announces a positive integer $n$, along with $2n$ real numbers $x_1 < \dots < x_{2n}$, to the audience. A member of the audience then secretly chooses a polynomial $P(x)$ of degree $n$ with real coefficients, computes the $2n$ values $P(x_1), \dots , P(x_{2n})$, and writes down these $2n$ values on the blackboard in non-decreasing order. After that the magician announces the secret polynomial to the audience. Can the magician find a strategy to perform such a trick?

2010 Peru IMO TST, 3

Tags: combinatorics , game , IMO Shortlist , invariant , Gerhard Woeginger

Five identical empty buckets of $2$-liter capacity stand at the vertices of a regular pentagon. Cinderella and her wicked Stepmother go through a sequence of rounds: At the beginning of every round, the Stepmother takes one liter of water from the nearby river and distributes it arbitrarily over the five buckets. Then Cinderella chooses a pair of neighbouring buckets, empties them to the river and puts them back. Then the next round begins. The Stepmother goal's is to make one of these buckets overflow. Cinderella's goal is to prevent this. Can the wicked Stepmother enforce a bucket overflow? [i]Proposed by Gerhard Woeginger, Netherlands[/i]