Found problems: 60
Math Hour Olympiad, Grades 8-10, 2014.2
A complete set of the Encyclopedia of Mathematics has $10$ volumes. There are ten mathematicians in Mathemagic Land, and each of them owns two volumes of the Encyclopedia. Together they own two complete sets. Show that there is a way for each mathematician to donate one book to the library such that the library receives a complete set.
2023 Math Hour Olympiad, 8-10
[u]Round 1[/u]
[b]p1.[/b] Alex is on a week-long mining quest. Each morning, she mines at least $1$ and at most $10$ diamonds and adds them to her treasure chest (which already contains some diamonds). Every night she counts the total number of diamonds in her collection and finds that it is divisible by either $22$ or $25$. Show that she miscounted.
[b]p2.[/b] Hermione set out a row of $11$ Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans for Ron to try. There are $5$ chocolateflavored beans that Ron likes and $6$ beans flavored like earwax, which he finds disgusting. All beans look the same, and Hermione tells Ron that a chocolate bean always has another chocolate bean next to it. What is the smallest number of beans that Ron must taste to guarantee he finds a chocolate one?
[b]p3.[/b] There are $101$ pirates on a pirate ship: the captain and $100$ crew. Each pirate, including the captain, starts with $1$ gold coin. The captain makes proposals for redistributing the coins, and the crew vote on these proposals. The captain does not vote. For every proposal, each crew member greedily votes “yes” if he gains coins as a result of the proposal, “no” if he loses coins, and passes otherwise. If strictly more crew members vote “yes” than “no,” the proposal takes effect. The captain can make any number of proposals, one after the other. What is the largest number of coins the captain can accumulate?
[b]p4.[/b] There are $100$ food trucks in a circle and $10$ gnomes who sample their menus. For the first course, all the gnomes eat at different trucks. For each
course after the first,
gnome #$1$ moves $1$ truck left or right and eats there;
gnome #$2$ moves $2$ trucks left or right and eats there;
...
gnome #$10$ moves $10$ trucks left or right and eats there.
All gnomes move at the same time. After some number of courses, each food truck had served at least one gnome. Show that at least one gnome ate at some food truck twice.
[b]p5.[/b] The town of Lumenville has $100$ houses and is preparing for the math festival. The Tesla wiring company lays lengths of power wire in straight lines between the houses so that power flows between any two houses, possibly by passing through other houses.The Edison lighting company hangs strings of lights in straight lines between pairs of houses so that each house is connected by a string to exactly one other. Show that however the houses are arranged, the Edison company can always hang their strings of lights so that the total length of the strings is no more than the total length of the power wires the Tesla company used.
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/9/2/763de9f4138b4dc552247e9316175036c649b6.png[/img]
[u]Round 2[/u]
[b]p6.[/b] What is the largest number of zeros that could appear at the end of $1^n + 2^n + 3^n + 4^n$, where n can be any positive integer?
[b]p7.[/b] A tennis academy has $2023$ members. For every group of 1011 people, there is a person outside of the group who played a match against everyone in it. Show there is someone who has played against all $2022$ other members.
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Math Hour Olympiad, Grades 5-7, 2017.67
[u]Round 1[/u]
[b]p1.[/b] Ten children arrive at a birthday party and leave their shoes by the door. All the children have different shoe sizes. Later, as they leave one at a time, each child randomly grabs a pair of shoes their size or larger. After some kids have left, all of the remaining shoes are too small for any of the remaining children. What is the greatest number of shoes that might remain by the door?
[b]p2.[/b] Turans, the king of Saturn, invented a new language for his people. The alphabet has only $6$ letters: A, N, R, S, T, U; however, the alphabetic order is different than in English. A word is any sequence of $6$ different letters. In the dictionary for this language, the first word is SATURN. Which word follows immediately after TURANS?
[b]p3.[/b] Benji chooses five integers. For each pair of these numbers, he writes down the pair's sum. Can all ten sums end with different digits?
[b]p4.[/b] Nine dwarves live in a house with nine rooms arranged in a $3\times3$ square. On Monday morning, each dwarf rubs noses with the dwarves in the adjacent rooms that share a wall. On Monday night, all the dwarves switch rooms. On Tuesday morning, they again rub noses with their adjacent neighbors. On Tuesday night, they move again. On Wednesday morning, they rub noses for the last time. Show that there are still two dwarves who haven't rubbed noses with one another.
[b]p5.[/b] Anna and Bobby take turns placing rooks in any empty square of a pyramid-shaped board with $100$ rows and $200$ columns. If a player places a rook in a square that can be attacked by a previously placed rook, he or she loses. Anna goes first. Can Bobby win no matter how well Anna plays?
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/7/5/b253b655b6740b1e1310037da07a0df4dc9914.png[/img]
[u]Round 2[/u]
[b]p6.[/b] Some boys and girls, all of different ages, had a snowball fight. Each girl threw one snowball at every kid who was older than her. Each boy threw one snowball at every kid who was younger than him. Three friends were hit by the same number of snowballs, and everyone else took fewer hits than they did. Prove that at least one of the three is a girl.
[b]p7.[/b] Last year, jugglers from around the world travelled to Jakarta to participate in the Jubilant Juggling Jamboree. The festival lasted $32$ days, with six solo performances scheduled each day. The organizers noticed that for any two days, there was exactly one juggler scheduled to perform on both days. No juggler performed more than once on a single day. Prove there was a juggler who performed every day.
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2014 Math Hour Olympiad, 8-10.7
If $a$ is any number, $\lfloor a \rfloor$ is $a$ rounded down to the nearest integer. For example, $\lfloor \pi \rfloor =$ $3$.
Show that the sequence
$\lfloor \frac{2^{1}}{17} \rfloor$, $\lfloor \frac{2^{2}}{17} \rfloor$, $\lfloor \frac{2^{3}}{17} \rfloor$, $\dots$
contains infinitely many odd numbers.
2019 Math Hour Olympiad, 6-7
[u]Round 1[/u]
[b]p1.[/b] Three two-digit numbers are written on a board. One starts with $5$, another with $6$, and the last one with $7$. Annie added the first and the second numbers; Benny added the second and the third numbers; Denny added the third and the first numbers. Could it be that one of these sums is equal to $148$, and the two other sums are three-digit numbers that both start with $12$?
[b]p2.[/b] Three rocks, three seashells, and one pearl are placed in identical boxes on a circular plate in the order shown. The lids of the boxes are then closed, and the plate is secretly rotated. You can open one box at a time. What is the smallest number of boxes you need to open to know where the pearl is, no matter how the plate was rotated?
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/0/2/6bb3a2a27f417a84ab9a64100b90b8768f7978.png[/img]
[b]p3.[/b] Two detectives, Holmes and Watson, are hunting the thief Raffles in a library, which has the floorplan exactly as shown in the diagram. Holmes and Watson start from the center room marked $D$. Show that no matter where Raffles is or how he moves, Holmes and Watson can find him. Holmes and Watson do not need to stay together. A detective sees Raffles only if they are in the same room. A detective cannot stand in a doorway to see two rooms at the same time.
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/c/1/6812f615e60a36aea922f145a1ffc470d0f1bc.png[/img]
[b]p4.[/b] A museum has a $4\times 4$ grid of rooms. Every two rooms that share a wall are connected by a door. Each room contains some paintings. The total number of paintings along any path of $7$ rooms from the lower left to the upper right room is always the same. Furthermore, the total number of paintings along any path of $7$ rooms from the lower right to the upper left room is always the same. The guide states that the museum has exactly $500$ paintings. Show that the guide is mistaken.
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/4/6/bf0185e142cd3f653d4a9c0882d818c55c64e4.png[/img]
[b]p5.[/b] The numbers $1–14$ are placed around a circle in some order. You can swap two neighbors if they differ by more than $1$. Is it always possible to rearrange the numbers using swaps so they are ordered clockwise from $1$ to $14$?
[u]Round 2[/u]
[b]p6.[/b] A triangulation of a regular polygon is a way of drawing line segments between its vertices so that no two segments cross, and the interior of the polygon is divided into triangles. A flip move erases a line segment between two triangles, creating a quadrilateral, and replaces it with the opposite diagonal through that quadrilateral. This results in a new triangulation.
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/a/a/657a7cf2382bab4d03046075c6e128374c72d4.png[/img]
Given any two triangulations of a polygon, is it always possible to find a sequence of flip moves that transforms the first one into the second one?
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/0/9/d09a3be9a01610ffc85010d2ac2f5b93fab46a.png[/img]
[b]p7.[/b] Is it possible to place the numbers from $1$ to $121$ in an $11\times 11$ table so that numbers that differ by $1$ are in horizontally or vertically adjacent cells and all the perfect squares $(1, 4, 9,..., 121)$ are in one column?
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Math Hour Olympiad, Grades 8-10, 2014.7
If $a$ is any number, $\lfloor a \rfloor$ is $a$ rounded down to the nearest integer. For example, $\lfloor \pi \rfloor =$ $3$.
Show that the sequence
$\lfloor \frac{2^{1}}{17} \rfloor$, $\lfloor \frac{2^{2}}{17} \rfloor$, $\lfloor \frac{2^{3}}{17} \rfloor$, $\dots$
contains infinitely many odd numbers.
Math Hour Olympiad, Grades 5-7, 2012.57
[u]Round 1[/u]
[b]p1.[/b] Tom and Jerry stole a chain of $7$ sausages and are now trying to divide the bounty. They take turns biting the sausages at one of the connections. When one of them breaks a connection, he may eat any single sausages that may fall out. Tom takes the first bite. Each of them is trying his best to eat more sausages than his opponent. Who will succeed?
[b]p2. [/b]The King of the Mountain Dwarves wants to light his underground throne room by placing several torches so that the whole room is lit. The king, being very miserly, wants to use as few torches as possible. What is the least number of torches he could use? (You should show why he can't do it with a smaller number of torches.)
This is the shape of the throne room:
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/b/2/719daafd91fc9a11b8e147bb24cb66b7a684e9.png[/img]
Also, the walls in all rooms are lined with velvet and do not reflect the light. For example, the picture on the right shows how another room in the castle is partially lit.
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/5/1/0f6971274e8c2ff3f2d0fa484b567ff3d631fb.png[/img]
[b]p3.[/b] In the Hundred Acre Wood, all the animals are either knights or liars. Knights always tell the truth and liars always lie. One day in the Wood, Winnie-the-Pooh, a knight, decides to visit his friend Rabbit, also a noble knight. Upon arrival, Pooh finds his friend sitting at a round table with $5$ other guests.
One-by-one, Pooh asks each person at the table how many of his two neighbors are knights. Surprisingly, he gets the same answer from everybody! "Oh bother!" proclaims Pooh. "I still don't have enough information to figure out how many knights are at this table."
"But it's my birthday," adds one of the guests. "Yes, it's his birthday!" agrees his neighbor.
Now Pooh can tell how many knights are at the table. Can you?
[b]p4.[/b] Several girls participate in a tennis tournament in which each player plays each other player exactly once. At the end of the tournament, it turns out that each player has lost at least one of her games. Prove that it is possible to find three players $A$, $B$, and $C$ such that $A$ defeated $B$, $B$ defeated $C$, and $C$ defeated $A$.
[b]p5.[/b] There are $40$ piles of stones with an equal number of stones in each. Two players, Ann and Bob, can select any two piles of stones and combine them into one bigger pile, as long as this pile would not contain more than half of all the stones on the table. A player who can’t make a move loses. Ann goes first. Who wins?
[u]Round 2[/u]
[b]p6.[/b] In a galaxy far, far away, there is a United Galactic Senate with $100$ Senators. Each Senator has no more than three enemies. Tired of their arguments, the Senators want to split into two parties so that each Senator has no more than one enemy in his own party. Prove that they can do this. (Note: If $A$ is an enemy of $B$, then $B$ is an enemy of $A$.)
[b]p7.[/b] Harry has a $2012$ by $2012$ chessboard and checkers numbered from $1$ to $2012 \times 2012$. Can he place all the checkers on the chessboard in such a way that whatever row and column Professor Snape picks, Harry will be able to choose three checkers from this row and this column such that the product of the numbers on two of the checkers will be equal to the number on the third?
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/b/3/a87d559b340ceefee485f41c8fe44ae9a59113.png[/img]
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2019 Math Hour Olympiad, 8-10
[u]Round 1[/u]
[b]p1.[/b] The alphabet of the Aau-Bau language consists of two letters: A and B. Two words have the same meaning if one of them can be constructed from the other by replacing any AA with A, replacing any BB with B, or by replacing any ABA with BAB. For example, the word AABA means the same thing as ABA, and AABA also means the same thing as ABAB. In this language, is it possible to name all seven days of the week?
[b]p2.[/b] A museum has a $4\times 4$ grid of rooms. Every two rooms that share a wall are connected by a door. Each room contains some paintings. The total number of paintings along any path of $7$ rooms from the lower left to the upper right room is always the same. Furthermore, the total number of paintings along any path of $7$ rooms from the lower right to the upper left room is always the same. The guide states that the museum has exactly $500$ paintings. Show that the guide is mistaken.
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/7/6/0fd93a0deaa71a5bb1599d2488f8b4eac5d0eb.jpg[/img]
[b]p3.[/b] A playground has a swing-set with exactly three swings. When 3rd and 4th graders from Dr. Anna’s math class play during recess, she has a rule that if a $3^{rd}$ grader is in the middle swing there must be $4^{th}$ graders on that person’s left and right. And if there is a $4^{th}$ grader in the middle, there must be $3^{rd}$ graders on that person’s left and right. Dr. Anna calculates that there are $350$ different ways her students can arrange themselves on the three swings with no empty seats. How many students are in her class?
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/5/9/4c402d143646582376d09ebbe54816b8799311.jpg[/img]
[b]p4.[/b] The archipelago Artinagos has $19$ islands. Each island has toll bridges to at least $3$ other islands. An unsuspecting driver used a bad mapping app to plan a route from North Noether Island to South Noether Island, which involved crossing $12$ bridges. Show that there must be a route with fewer bridges.
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/e/3/4eea2c16b201ff2ac732788fe9b78025004853.jpg[/img]
[b]p5.[/b] Is it possible to place the numbers from $1$ to $121$ in an $11\times 11$ table so that numbers that differ by $1$ are in horizontally or vertically adjacent cells and all the perfect squares $(1, 4, 9, ... , 121)$ are in one column?
[u]Round 2[/u]
[b]p6.[/b] Hungry and Sneaky have opened a rectangular box of chocolates and are going to take turns eating them. The chocolates are arranged in a $2m \times 2n$ grid. Hungry can take any two chocolates that are side-by-side, but Sneaky can take only one at a time. If there are no more chocolates located side-by-side, all remaining chocolates go to Sneaky. Hungry goes first. Each player wants to eat as many chocolates as possible. What is the maximum number of chocolates Sneaky can get, no matter how Hungry picks his?
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/b/4/26d7156ca6248385cb46c6e8054773592b24a3.jpg[/img]
[b]p7.[/b] There is a thief hiding in the sultan’s palace. The palace contains $2019$ rooms connected by doors. One can walk from any room to any other room, possibly through other rooms, and there is only one way to do this. That is, one cannot walk in a loop in the palace. To catch the thief, a guard must be in the same room as the thief at the same time. Prove that $11$ guards can always find and catch the thief, no matter how the thief moves around during the search.
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/a/b/9728ac271e84c4954935553c4d58b3ff4b194d.jpg[/img]
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Math Hour Olympiad, Grades 5-7, 2014.57
[u]Round 1[/u]
[b]p1.[/b] Three snails – Alice, Bobby, and Cindy – were racing down a road.
Whenever one snail passed another, it waved at the snail it passed.
During the race, Alice waved $3$ times and was waved at twice.
Bobby waved $4$ times and was waved at $3$ times.
Cindy waved $5$ times. How many times was she waved at?
[b]p2.[/b] Sherlock and Mycroft are playing Battleship on a $4\times 4$ grid. Mycroft hides a single $3\times 1$ cruiser somewhere on the board. Sherlock can pick squares on the grid and fire upon them. What is the smallest number of shots Sherlock has to fire to guarantee at least one hit on the cruiser?
[b]p3.[/b] Thirty girls – $13$ of them in red dresses and $17$ in blue dresses – were dancing in a circle, hand-in-hand. Afterwards, each girl was asked if the girl to her right was in a blue dress. Only the girls who had both neighbors in red dresses or both in blue dresses told the truth. How many girls could have answered “Yes”?
[b]p4.[/b] Herman and Alex play a game on a $5\times 5$ board. On his turn, a player can claim any open square as his territory. Once all the squares are claimed, the winner is the player whose territory has the longer border. Herman goes first. If both play their best, who will win, or will the game end in a draw?
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/5/7/113d54f2217a39bac622899d3d3eb51ec34f1f.png[/img]
[b]p5.[/b] Is it possible to find $2014$ distinct positive integers whose sum is divisible by each of them?
[u]Round 2[/u]
[b]p6.[/b] Hermione and Ron play a game that starts with 129 hats arranged in a circle. They take turns magically transforming the hats into animals. On each turn, a player picks a hat and chooses whether to change it into a badger or into a raven. A player loses if after his or her turn there are two animals of the same species right next to each other. Hermione goes first. Who loses?
[b]p7.[/b] Three warring states control the corner provinces of the island whose map is shown below.
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/e/a/4e2f436be1dcd3f899aa34145356f8c66cda82.png[/img]
As a result of war, each of the remaining $18$ provinces was occupied by one of the states. None of the states was able to occupy any province on the coast opposite their corner. The states would like to sign a peace treaty. To do this, they each must send ambassadors to a place where three provinces, one controlled by each state, come together. Prove that they can always find such a place to meet.
For example, if the provinces are occupied as shown here, the squares mark possible meeting spots.
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/e/b/81de9187951822120fc26024c1c1fbe2138737.png[/img]
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Math Hour Olympiad, Grades 8-10, 2011
[u]Round 1 [/u]
[b]p1. [/b]Twelve people, some are knights and some are knaves, are sitting around a table.
Knaves always lie and knights always tell the truth. At some point they start up a conversation.
The first person says, “There are no knights around this table.”
The second says, “There is at most one knight at this table.”
The third – “There are at most two knights at the table.”
And so on until the 12th says, “There are at most eleven knights at the table.”
How many knights are at the table? Justify your answer.
[b]p2.[/b] Show that in the sequence $10017$, $100117$, $1001117$, $...$ all numbers are divisible by $53$.
[b]p3.[/b] Harry and Draco have three wands: a bamboo wand, a willow wand, and a cherry wand, all of the same length. They must perform a spell wherein they take turns picking a wand and breaking it into three parts – first Harry, then Draco, then Harry again. But in order for the spell to work, Harry has to make sure it is possible to form three triangles out of the pieces of the wands, where each triangle has a piece from each wand. How should he break the wands to ensure the success of the spell?
[b]p4.[/b] A $2\times 2\times 2$ cube has $4$ equal squares on each face. The squares that share a side are called neighbors (thus, each square has $4$ neighbors – see picture). Is it possible to write an integer in each square in such a way that the sum of each number with its $4$ neighbors is equal to $13$? If yes, show how. If no, explain why not.
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/8/4/0f7457f40be40398dee806d125ba26780f9d3a.png[/img]
[b]p5.[/b] Two girls are playing a game. The first player writes the letters $A$ or $B$ in a row, left to right, adding one letter on her turn. The second player switches any two letters after each move by the first player (the letters do not have to be adjacent), or does nothing, which also counts as a move. The game is over when each player has made $2011$ moves. Can the second player plan her moves so that the resulting letters form a palindrome? (A palindrome is a sequence that reads the same forward and backwards, e.g. $AABABAA$.)
[u]Round 2 [/u]
[b]p6.[/b] A red square is placed on a table. $2010$ white squares, each the same size as the red square, are then placed on the table in such a way that the red square is fully covered and the sides of every white square are parallel to the sides of the red square. Is it always possible to remove one of the white squares so the red square remains completely covered?
[b]p7.[/b] A computer starts with a given positive integer to which it randomly adds either $54$ or $77$ every second and prints the resulting sum after each addition. For example, if the computer is given the number $1$, then a possible output could be: $1$, $55$, $109$, $186$, $…$ Show that after finitely many seconds the computer will print a number whose last two digits are the same.
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