Found problems: 81
2021 Girls in Math at Yale, R5
13. The triangle with vertices $(0,0), (a,b)$, and $(a,-b)$ has area $10$. Find the sum of all possible positive integer values of $a$, given that $b$ is a positive integer.
14. Elsa is venturing into the unknown. She stands on $(0,0)$ in the coordinate plane, and each second, she moves to one of the four lattice points nearest her, chosen at random and with equal probability. If she ever moves to a lattice point she has stood on before, she has ventured back into the known, and thus stops venturing into the unknown from then on. After four seconds have passed, the probability that Elsa is still venturing into the unknown can be expressed as $\frac{a}{b}$ in simplest terms. Find $a+b$.
(A lattice point is a point with integer coordinates.)
15. Let $ABCD$ be a square with side length $4$. Points $X, Y,$ and $Z$, distinct from points $A, B, C,$ and $D$, are selected on sides $AD, AB,$ and $CD$, respectively, such that $XY = 3, XZ = 4$, and $\angle YXZ = 90^{\circ}$. If $AX = \frac{a}{b}$ in simplest terms, then find $a + b$.
2001 Stanford Mathematics Tournament, 2
How many positive integers between 1 and 400 (inclusive) have exactly 15 positive integer factors?
1972 IMO Longlists, 4
You have a triangle, $ABC$. Draw in the internal angle trisectors. Let the two trisectors closest to $AB$ intersect at $D$, the two trisectors closest to $BC$ intersect at $E$, and the two closest to $AC$ at $F$. Prove that $DEF$ is equilateral.
2006 Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament, 1
Larry can swim from Harvard to MIT (with the current of the Charles River) in $40$ minutes, or back (against the current) in $45$ minutes. How long does it take him to row from Harvard to MIT, if he rows the return trip in $15$ minutes? (Assume that the speed of the current and Larry’s swimming and rowing speeds relative to the current are all constant.) Express your answer in the format mm:ss.
2006 Putnam, B1
Show that the curve $x^{3}+3xy+y^{3}=1$ contains only one set of three distinct points, $A,B,$ and $C,$ which are the vertices of an equilateral triangle.
2013 NIMO Problems, 3
At Stanford in 1988, human calculator Shakuntala Devi was asked to compute $m = \sqrt[3]{61{,}629{,}875}$ and $n = \sqrt[7]{170{,}859{,}375}$. Given that $m$ and $n$ are both integers, compute $100m+n$.
[i]Proposed by Evan Chen[/i]
2021 Girls in Math at Yale, 6
Kara rolls a six-sided die six times, and notices that the results satisfy the following conditions:
[list]
[*] She rolled a $6$ exactly three times;
[*] The product of her first three rolls is the same as the product of her last three rolls.
[/list]
How many distinct sequences of six rolls could Kara have rolled?
[i]Proposed by Andrew Wu[/i]
2021 Girls in Math at Yale, R3
7. Peggy picks three positive integers between $1$ and $25$, inclusive, and tells us the following information about those numbers:
[list]
[*] Exactly one of them is a multiple of $2$;
[*] Exactly one of them is a multiple of $3$;
[*] Exactly one of them is a multiple of $5$;
[*] Exactly one of them is a multiple of $7$;
[*] Exactly one of them is a multiple of $11$.
[/list]
What is the maximum possible sum of the integers that Peggy picked?
8. What is the largest positive integer $k$ such that $2^k$ divides $2^{4^8}+8^{2^4}+4^{8^2}$?
9. Find the smallest integer $n$ such that $n$ is the sum of $7$ consecutive positive integers and the sum of $12$ consecutive positive integers.
2001 Stanford Mathematics Tournament, 9
What is the minimum number of straight cuts needed to cut a cake in 100 pieces? The pieces do not need to be the same size or shape but cannot be rearranged between cuts. You may assume that the cake is a large cube and may be cut from any direction.
2022 Girls in Math at Yale, 5
Cat and Claire are having a conversation about Cat's favorite number.
Cat says, "My favorite number is a two-digit positive integer with distinct nonzero digits, $\overline{AB}$, such that $A$ and $B$ are both factors of $\overline{AB}$."
Claire says, "I don't know your favorite number yet, but I do know that among four of the numbers that might be your favorite number, you could start with any one of them, add a second, subtract a third, and get the fourth!"
Cat says, "That's cool, and my favorite number is among those four numbers! Also, the square of my number is the product of two of the other numbers among the four you mentioned!"
Claire says, "Now I know your favorite number!"
What is Cat's favorite number?
[i]Proposed by Andrew Wu[/i]
2006 IMC, 5
Let $a, b, c, d$ three strictly positive real numbers such that \[a^{2}+b^{2}+c^{2}=d^{2}+e^{2},\] \[a^{4}+b^{4}+c^{4}=d^{4}+e^{4}.\] Compare \[a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3}\] with \[d^{3}+e^{3},\]
2001 Stanford Mathematics Tournament, 1
$ABCD$ is a square with sides of unit length. Points $E$ and $F$ are taken on sides $AB$ and $AD$ respectively so that $AE = AF$ and the quadrilateral $CDFE$ has maximum area. What is this maximum area?
2001 Stanford Mathematics Tournament, 12
A binary string is a string consisting of only 0’s and 1’s (for instance, 001010, 101, etc.). What is the probability that a randomly chosen binary string of length 10 has 2 consecutive 0’s? Express your answer as a fraction.
2013 Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament, 36
(Mathematicians A to Z) Below are the names of 26 mathematicians, one for each letter of the alphabet. Your answer to this question should be a subset of $\{A,B,\cdots,Z\}$, where each letter represents the corresponding mathematician. If two mathematicians in your subset have birthdates that are within $20$ years of each other, then your score is $0$. Otherwise, your score is $\max(3(k-3),0)$ where $k$ is the number of elements in your set.
\[\begin{tabular}{cc}Niels Abel & Isaac Newton\\Etienne Bezout & Nicole Oresme \\ Augustin-Louis Cauchy & Blaise Pascal \\ Rene Descartes & Daniel Quillen \\ Leonhard Euler & Bernhard Riemann\\ Pierre Fatou & Jean-Pierre Serre \\ Alexander Grothendieck & Alan Turing \\ David Hilbert & Stanislaw Ulam \\ Kenkichi Iwasawa & John Venn \\ Carl Jacobi & Andrew Wiles \\ Andrey Kolmogorov & Leonardo Ximenes \\ Joseph-Louis Lagrange & Shing-Tung Yau \\ John Milnor & Ernst Zermelo\end{tabular}\]
2004 Postal Coaching, 2
(a) Find all triples $(x,y,z)$ of positive integers such that $xy \equiv 2 (\bmod{z})$ , $yz \equiv 2 (\bmod{x})$ and $zx \equiv 2 (\bmod{y} )$
(b) Let $n \geq 1$ be an integer. Give an algoritm to determine all triples $(x,y,z)$ such that '2' in part (a) is replaced by 'n' in all three congruences.
2021 Girls in Math at Yale, 12
Let $\Gamma_1$ and $\Gamma_2$ be externally tangent circles with radii lengths $2$ and $6$, respectively, and suppose that they are tangent to and lie on the same side of line $\ell$. Points $A$ and $B$ are selected on $\ell$ such that $\Gamma_1$ and $\Gamma_2$ are internally tangent to the circle with diameter $AB$. If $AB = a + b\sqrt{c}$ for positive integers $a, b, c$ with $c$ squarefree, then find $a + b + c$.
[i]Proposed by Andrew Wu, Deyuan Li, and Andrew Milas[/i]
2006 Putnam, B6
Let $k$ be an integer greater than $1.$ Suppose $a_{0}>0$ and define
\[a_{n+1}=a_{n}+\frac1{\sqrt[k]{a_{n}}}\]
for $n\ge 0.$ Evaluate
\[\lim_{n\to\infty}\frac{a_{n}^{k+1}}{n^{k}}.\]
2018 HMIC, 3
A polygon in the plane (with no self-intersections) is called $\emph{equitable}$ if every line passing through the origin divides the polygon into two (possibly disconnected) regions of equal area.
Does there exist an equitable polygon which is not centrally symmetric about the origin?
(A polygon is centrally symmetric about the origin if a $180$-degree rotation about the origin sends the polygon to itself.)
2018 HMIC, 2
Consider a finite set of points $T\in\mathbb{R}^n$ contained in the $n$-dimensional unit ball centered at the origin, and let $X$ be the convex hull of $T$. Prove that for all positive integers $k$ and all points $x\in X$, there exist points $t_1, t_2, \dots, t_k\in T$, not necessarily distinct, such that their centroid
\[\frac{t_1+t_2+\dots+t_k}{k}\]has Euclidean distance at most $\frac{1}{\sqrt{k}}$ from $x$.
(The $n$-dimensional unit ball centered at the origin is the set of points in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with Euclidean distance at most $1$ from the origin. The convex hull of a set of points $T\in\mathbb{R}^n$ is the smallest set of points $X$ containing $T$ such that each line segment between two points in $X$ lies completely inside $X$.)
2018 HMIC, 4
Find all functions $f: \mathbb{R}^+\to\mathbb{R}^+$ such that
\[f(x+f(y+xy))=(y+1)f(x+1)-1\]for all $x,y\in\mathbb{R}^+$.
($\mathbb{R}^+$ denotes the set of positive real numbers.)
2007 Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament, 7
A student at Harvard named Kevin
Was counting his stones by $11$
He messed up $n$ times
And instead counted $9$s
And wound up at $2007$.
How many values of $n$ could make this limerick true?
2022 Girls in Math at Yale, 3
The [b]Collaptz function[/b] is defined as $$C(n) = \begin{cases} 3n - 1 & n\textrm{~odd}, \\ \frac{n}{2} & n\textrm{~even}.\end{cases}$$
We obtain the [b]Collaptz sequence[/b] of a number by repeatedly applying the Collaptz function to that number. For example, the Collaptz sequence of $13$ begins with $13, 38, 19, 56, 28, \cdots$ and so on. Find the sum of the three smallest positive integers $n$ whose Collaptz sequences do not contain $1,$ or in other words, do not [b]collaptzse[/b].
[i]Proposed by Andrew Wu and Jason Wang[/i]
2009 Stanford Mathematics Tournament, 5
In the 2009 Stanford Olympics, Willy and Sammy are two bikers. The circular race track has two
lanes, the inner lane with radius 11, and the outer with radius 12. Willy will start on the inner lane,
and Sammy on the outer. They will race for one complete lap, measured by the inner track.
What is the square of the distance between Willy and Sammy's starting positions so that they will both race
the same distance? Assume that they are of point size and ride perfectly along their respective lanes
2011 Tuymaada Olympiad, 4
The Duke of Squares left to his three sons a square estate, $100\times 100$ square miles, made up of ten thousand $1\times 1$ square mile square plots. The whole estate was divided among his sons as follows. Each son was assigned a point inside the estate. A $1\times 1$ square plot was bequeathed to the son whose assigned point was closest to the center of this square plot. Is it true that, irrespective of the choice of assigned points, each of the regions bequeathed to the sons is connected (that is, there is a path between every two of its points, never leaving the region)?
2001 Stanford Mathematics Tournament, 13
You have 2 six-sided dice. One is a normal fair die, while the other has 2 ones, 2 threes, and 2 fives. You pick a die and roll it. Because of some secret magnetic attraction of the unfair die, you have a 75% chance of picking the unfair die and a 25% chance of picking the fair die. If you roll a three, what is the probability that you chose the fair die?