Let $a$ be a real number. Find the number of functions $f:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ depending on $a$, such that $f(xy+f(y))=f(x)y+a$ holds for every $x, y\in \mathbb{R}$.

Hi guys, I was just reading over old posts that I made last year ( :P ) and saw how much the level of Getting Started became harder. To encourage more people from posting, I decided to start a Problem of the Day. This is how I'll conduct this: 1. In each post (not including this one since it has rules, etc) everyday, I'll post the problem. I may post another thread after it to give hints though. 2. Level of problem.. This is VERY important. All problems in this thread will be all AHSME or problems similar to this level. No AIME. Some AHSME problems, however, that involve tough insight or skills will not be posted. The chosen problems will be usually ones that everyone can solve after working. Calculators are allowed when you solve problems but it is NOT necessary. 3. Response.. All you have to do is simply solve the problem and post the solution. There is no credit given or taken away if you get the problem wrong. This isn't like other threads where the number of problems you get right or not matters. As for posting, post your solutions here in this thread. Do NOT PM me. Also, here are some more restrictions when posting solutions: A. No single answer post. It doesn't matter if you put hide and say "Answer is ###..." If you don't put explanation, it simply means you cheated off from some other people. I've seen several posts that went like "I know the answer" and simply post the letter. What is the purpose of even posting then? Huh? B. Do NOT go back to the previous problem(s). This causes too much confusion. C. You're FREE to give hints and post different idea, way or answer in some cases in problems. If you see someone did wrong or you don't understand what they did, post here. That's what this thread is for. 4. Main purpose.. This is for anyone who visits this forum to enjoy math. I rememeber when I first came into this forum, I was poor at math compared to other people. But I kindly got help from many people such as JBL, joml88, tokenadult, and many other people that would take too much time to type. Perhaps without them, I wouldn't be even a moderator in this forum now. This site clearly made me to enjoy math more and more and I'd like to do the same thing. That's about the rule.. Have fun problem solving! Next post will contain the Day 1 Problem. You can post the solutions until I post one. :D

Consider a matrix of size $n\times n$ whose entries are real numbers of absolute value not exceeding $1$. The sum of all entries of the matrix is $0$. Let $n$ be an even positive integer. Determine the least number $C$ such that every such matrix necessarily has a row or a column with the sum of its entries not exceeding $C$ in absolute value. [i]Proposed by Marcin Kuczma, Poland[/i]

For $k=1,2,\ldots ,2011$ we denote $S_k=\frac{1}{k}+\frac{1}{k+1}+\cdots +\frac{1}{2011}$. Compute the sum $S_1+S_1^2+S_2^2+\cdots +S_{2011}^2$.

Prove that $A=10^{n^3-n+2}$ can be written as a sum of four perfect cubes.

Let $a_1, a_2, \dots$ and $b_1, b_2, \dots$ be sequences of real numbers for which $a_1 > b_1$ and \begin{align*} a_{n+1} &= a_n^2 - 2b_n\\ b_{n+1} &= b_n^2 - 2a_n \end{align*} for all positive integers $n$. Prove that $a_1, a_2, \dots$ is eventually increasing (that is, there exists a positive integer $N$ for which $a_k < a_{k+1}$ for all $k > N$). [i]Holden Mui[/i]

[u]Set 1[/u] [b]B1.[/b] Evaluate $2 + 0 - 2 \times 0$. [b]B2.[/b] It takes four painters four hours to paint four houses. How many hours does it take forty painters to paint forty houses? [b]B3.[/b] Let $a$ be the answer to this question. What is $\frac{1}{2-a}$? [u]Set 2[/u] [b]B4.[/b] Every day at Andover is either sunny or rainy. If today is sunny, there is a $60\%$ chance that tomorrow is sunny and a $40\%$ chance that tomorrow is rainy. On the other hand, if today is rainy, there is a $60\%$ chance that tomorrow is rainy and a $40\%$ chance that tomorrow is sunny. Given that today is sunny, the probability that the day after tomorrow is sunny can be expressed as n%, where n is a positive integer. What is $n$? [b]B5.[/b] In the diagram below, what is the value of $\angle DD'Y$ in degrees? [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/0/8/6c966b13c840fa1885948d0e4ad598f36bee9d.png[/img] [b]B6.[/b] Christina, Jeremy, Will, and Nathan are standing in a line. In how many ways can they be arranged such that Christina is to the left of Will and Jeremy is to the left of Nathan? Note: Christina does not have to be next to Will and Jeremy does not have to be next to Nathan. For example, arranging them as Christina, Jeremy, Will, Nathan would be valid. [u]Set 3[/u] [b]B7.[/b] Let $P$ be a point on side $AB$ of square $ABCD$ with side length $8$ such that $PA = 3$. Let $Q$ be a point on side $AD$ such that $P Q \perp P C$. The area of quadrilateral $PQDB$ can be expressed in the form $m/n$ for relatively prime positive integers $m$ and $n$. Compute $m + n$. [b]B8.[/b] Jessica and Jeffrey each pick a number uniformly at random from the set $\{1, 2, 3, 4, 5\}$ (they could pick the same number). If Jessica’s number is $x$ and Jeffrey’s number is $y$, the probability that $x^y$ has a units digit of $1$ can be expressed as $m/n$ , where $m$ and $n$ are relatively prime positive integers. Find $m + n$. [b]B9.[/b] For two points $(x_1, y_1)$ and $(x_2, y_2)$ in the plane, we define the taxicab distance between them as $|x_1 - x_2| + |y_1 - y_2|$. For example, the taxicab distance between $(-1, 2)$ and $(3,\sqrt2)$ is $6-\sqrt2$. What is the largest number of points Nathan can find in the plane such that the taxicab distance between any two of the points is the same? [u]Set 4[/u] [b]B10.[/b] Will wants to insert some × symbols between the following numbers: $$1\,\,\,2\,\,\,3\,\,\,4\,\,\,6$$ to see what kinds of answers he can get. For example, here is one way he can insert $\times$ symbols: $$1 \times 23 \times 4 \times 6 = 552.$$ Will discovers that he can obtain the number $276$. What is the sum of the numbers that he multiplied together to get $276$? [b]B11.[/b] Let $ABCD$ be a parallelogram with $AB = 5$, $BC = 3$, and $\angle BAD = 60^o$ . Let the angle bisector of $\angle ADC$ meet $AC$ at $E$ and $AB$ at $F$. The length $EF$ can be expressed as $m/n$, where $m$ and $n$ are relatively prime positive integers. What is $m + n$? [b]B12.[/b] Find the sum of all positive integers $n$ such that $\lfloor \sqrt{n^2 - 2n + 19} \rfloor = n$. Note: $\lfloor x \rfloor$ denotes the greatest integer less than or equal to $x$. [u]Set 5[/u] [b]B13.[/b] This year, February $29$ fell on a Saturday. What is the next year in which February $29$ will be a Saturday? [b]B14.[/b] Let $f(x) = \frac{1}{x} - 1$. Evaluate $$f\left( \frac{1}{2020}\right) \times f\left( \frac{2}{2020}\right) \times f\left( \frac{3}{2020}\right) \times \times ... \times f\left( \frac{2019}{2020}\right) .$$ [b]B15.[/b] Square $WXYZ$ is inscribed in square $ABCD$ with side length $1$ such that $W$ is on $AB$, $X$ is on $BC$, $Y$ is on $CD$, and $Z$ is on $DA$. Line $W Y$ hits $AD$ and $BC$ at points $P$ and $R$ respectively, and line $XZ$ hits $AB$ and $CD$ at points $Q$ and $S$ respectively. If the area of $WXYZ$ is $\frac{13}{18}$ , then the area of $PQRS$ can be expressed as $m/n$ for relatively prime positive integers $m$ and $n$. What is $m + n$? PS. You had better use hide for answers. Last sets have been posted [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c4h2777424p24371574]here[/url]. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309]here[/url].

Let $a\in\left[ \tfrac{1}{2},\ \tfrac{3}{2}\right]$ be a real number. Sequences $(u_n),\ (v_n)$ are defined as follows: $$u_n=\frac{3}{2^{n+1}}\cdot (-1)^{\lfloor2^{n+1}a\rfloor},\ v_n=\frac{3}{2^{n+1}}\cdot (-1)^{n+\lfloor 2^{n+1}a\rfloor}.$$ a. Prove that $${{({{u}_{0}}+{{u}_{1}}+\cdots +{{u}_{2018}})}^{2}}+{{({{v}_{0}}+{{v}_{1}}+\cdots +{{v}_{2018}})}^{2}}\le 72{{a}^{2}}-48a+10+\frac{2}{{{4}^{2019}}}.$$ b. Find all values of $a$ in the equality case.

The sequence $a_1,a_2, ..., a_{2n}$ of integers is such that each number occurs in no more than $n$ times. Prove that there are two strictly increasing sequences of indices $b_1,b_2, ..., b_{n}$ and $c_1,c_2, ..., c_{n}$ are such that every positive integer from the set $\{1,2,...,2n\}$ occurs exactly in one of these two sequences, and for each $1\le i \le n$ is true the condition $a_{b_i} \ne a_{c_i}$ . (Anton Trygub)

Given positive integers $k, m, n$ such that $1 \leq k \leq m \leq n$. Evaluate \[\sum^{n}_{i=0} \frac{(-1)^i}{n+k+i} \cdot \frac{(m+n+i)!}{i!(n-i)!(m+i)!}.\]

The equations $x^2 +2ax+b^2 = 0$ and $x^2 +2bx+c^2 = 0$ both have two different real roots. Determine the number of real roots of the equation $x^2 + 2cx + a^2 = 0.$

For integer $k \ge 1$, let $a_k =\frac{k}{4k^4 + 1}$. Find the least integer $n$ such that $a_1 + a_2 + a_3 + ... + a_n > \frac{505.45}{2022}$.

Let $f : \mathbb Q \to \mathbb Q$ be a function such that for any $x,y \in \mathbb Q$, the number $f(x+y)-f(x)-f(y)$ is an integer. Decide whether it follows that there exists a constant $c$ such that $f(x) - cx$ is an integer for every rational number $x$. [i]Proposed by Victor Wang[/i]

Let $S$ be a finite, nonempty set of real numbers such that the distance between any two distinct points in $S$ is an element of $S$. In other words, $|x-y|$ is in $S$ whenever $x \ne y$ and $x$ and $y$ are both in $S$. Prove that the elements of $S$ may be arranged in an arithmetic progression. This means that there are numbers $a$ and $d$ such that $S = \{a, a+d, a+2d, a+3d, ..., a+kd, ...\}$.

The inradius of triangle $ ABC$ is $ 1$ and the side lengths of $ ABC$ are all integers. Prove that triangle $ ABC$ is right-angled.

Find all functions $f:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ such that for all $x,y\in \mathbb{R}$: $$f\left(f(x)^2-y^2\right)^2+f(2xy)^2=f\left(x^2+y^2\right)^2$$ [i]Proposed by Ali Behrouz - Mojtaba Zare Bidaki[/i]

Find all functions $f : Z^+ \to Z^+$ such that $n^3 - n^2 \le f(n) \cdot (f(f(n)))^2 \le n^3 + n^2$ for every $n$ in positive integers

Let $n$ be an positive integer. We call $n$ $\textit{good}$ when there exists positive integer $k$ s.t. $n=k(k+1)$. Does there exist 2022 pairwise distinct $\textit{good}$ numbers s.t. their sum is also $\textit{good}$ number?

Prove that if  $(x+\sqrt{x^2 +1})(y+\sqrt{y^2 +1})= 1$ for real numbers $x,y$, then $x+y = 0$.

Let $p$ be a prime and $A = \{a_1, \ldots , a_{p-1} \}$ an arbitrary subset of the set of natural numbers such that none of its elements is divisible by $p$. Let us define a mapping $f$ from $\mathcal P(A)$ (the set of all subsets of $A$) to the set $P = \{0, 1, \ldots, p - 1\}$ in the following way: $(i)$ if $B = \{a_{i_{1}}, \ldots , a_{i_{k}} \} \subset A$ and $\sum_{j=1}^k a_{i_{j}} \equiv n \pmod p$, then $f(B) = n,$ $(ii)$ $f(\emptyset) = 0$, $\emptyset$ being the empty set. Prove that for each $n \in P$ there exists $B \subset A$ such that $f(B) = n.$

It is known that for quadratic polynomials $P(x)=x^2+ax+b$ and $Q(x)=x^2+cx+d$ the equation $P(Q(x))=Q(P(x))$ does not have real roots. Prove that $b \neq d$.

a)Let $A,B\in \mathcal{M}_3(\mathbb{R})$ such that $\text{rank}\ A>\text{rank}\ B$. Prove that $\text{rank}\ A^2\ge \text{rank}\ B^2$. b)Find the non-constant polynomials $f\in \mathbb{R}[X]$ such that $(\forall)A,B\in \mathcal{M}_4(\mathbb{R})$ with $\text{rank}\ A>\text{rank}\ B$, we have $\text{rank}\ f(A)>\text{rank}\ f(B)$.

Prove that for every natural number $n$ we have $$\sum_{s=n}^{2n} 2^{2n-s}{s \choose n}= 2^{2n}.$$

Let $n$ be a positive integer and let $T$ denote the collection of points $(x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_n) \in \mathbb R^n$ for which there exists a permutation $\sigma$ of $1, 2, \ldots , n$ such that $x_{\sigma(i)} - x_{\sigma(i+1) } \geq 1$ for each $i=1, 2, \ldots , n.$ Prove that there is a real number $d$ satisfying the following condition: For every $(a_1, a_2, \ldots, a_n) \in \mathbb R^n$ there exist points $(b_1, \ldots, b_n)$ and $(c_1,\ldots, c_n)$ in $T$ such that, for each $i = 1, . . . , n,$ \[a_i=\frac 12 (b_i+c_i) , \quad |a_i - b_i|  \leq d, \quad \text{and} \quad |a_i - c_i| \leq d.\]

Find the graph of the function $y=|2^{|x|}-1|$.