At the beginning of the academic year, the Olympic Center must accept a certain number of talented students for the 2024 different classes it offers. Although the admitted students are given freedom of choice in classes, there are certain rules. So, any student must take at least one class and cannot take all the classes. At the same time, there cannot be a common class that all students take, and any class must be taken by at least one student. As a final addition to the center's rules, for any student and any class that this student did not enroll in (call this type of class A), the number of students in each A must be greater than the number of classes this student enrolled. At least how many students must the center accept for these rules to be valid?

The game of pool includes $15$ balls that fit within a triangular rack as shown: [asy] // thanks Ritwin for this diagram :D unitsize(0.6cm); pair pos(real i, real j) { return i*dir(60) + (j,0); } for (int i = 0; i <= 4; ++i) { for (int j = 0; j <= 4-i; ++j) { draw(circle(pos(i,j), .5)); } } pair A = pos(0,0); pair B = pos(0,4); pair C = pos(4,0); pair dd = dir(270) * .5; pair ul = dir(150) * .5; pair ur = dir( 30) * .5; real S = 1.75; draw(A+dd -- B+dd ^^ B+ur -- C+ur ^^ C+ul -- A+ul ); draw(A+dd*S -- B+dd*S ^^ B+ur*S -- C+ur*S ^^ C+ul*S -- A+ul*S); draw(arc(A, A+ul*S, A+dd*S)); draw(arc(B, B+dd*S, B+ur*S)); draw(arc(C, C+ur*S, C+ul*S)); [/asy] Seven of the balls are "striped" (not colored with a single color) and eight are "solid" (colored with a single color). Prove that no matter how the $15$ balls are arranged in the rack, there must always be a pair of striped balls adjacent to each other.

A number is placed in each cell of an $n \times n$ board so that the following holds: (A) the cells on the boundary all contain 0; (B) other cells on the main diagonal are each1 greater than the mean of the numbers to the left and right; (C) other cells are the mean of the numbers to the left and right. Show that (B) and (C) remain true if ''left and right'' is replaced by ''above and below''.

[i]Biribol[/i] is a game played between two teams of 4 people each (teams are not fixed). Find all the possible values of $ n$ for which it is possible to arrange a tournament with $ n$ players in such a way that every couple of people plays a match in opposite teams exactly once.

Determine the number of sequences of points $(x_1, y_1),(x_2, y_2), \dots ,(x_{4570}, y_{4570})$ on the plane satisfying the following two properties: $\text{(i)}$ $\{x_1,x_2,\dots,x_{4570}\}=\{1,2,\dots,2014\}$ and $\{y_1,y_2,\dots,y_{4570}\}=\{1,2,\dots,2557\}$ $\text{(ii)} $ For each $i = 1, 2,\dots , 4569$, exactly one of $x_i = x_{i+1}$ and $y_i = y_{i+1}$ holds.

The cells of an $n\times n$ board with $n\ge 5$ are coloured black or white so that no three adjacent squares in a row, column or diagonal are the same colour. Show that for any $3\times 3$ square within the board, two of its corner squares are coloured black and two are coloured white.

There are $ n$ points on the plane, no three of which are collinear. Each pair of points is joined by a red, yellow or green line. For any three points, the sides of the triangle they form consist of exactly two colours. Show that $ n<13$.

A $1 \times 5n$ rectangle is partitioned into tiles, each of the tile being either a separate $1 \times 1$ square or a broken domino consisting of two such squares separated by four squares (not belonging to the domino). Prove that the number of such partitions is a perfect fifth power. [i](K. Kokhas)[/i]

When making a batch of $N \ge 5$ coins, a worker mistakenly made two coins from a different material (all coins look the same). The boss knows that there are exactly two such coins, that they weigh the same, but differ in weight from the others. The employee knows what coins these are and that they are lighter than others. He needs, after carrying out two weighings on cup scales without weights, to convince his boss that the coins are counterfeit easier than real ones, and in which coins are counterfeit. Can he do it?

[b]p1.[/b] Evaluate $1^2 - 2^2 + 3^2 - 4^2 + ...+ 19^2 - 20^2 + 21^2$. [b]p2.[/b] Kevin is playing in a table-tennis championship against Vincent. Kevin wins the championship if he wins two matches against Vincent, while Vincent must win three matches to win the championship. Given that both players have a $50\%$ chance of winning each match and there are no ties, the probability that Vincent loses the championship can be written in the form $\frac{a}{b}$ , where $a$ and $b$ are relatively prime positive integers. Find $a + b$. [b]p3.[/b] For how many positive integers $n$ less than $2000$ is $n^{3n}$ a perfect fourth power? [b]p4.[/b] Given that a coin of radius $\sqrt{3}$ cm is tossed randomly onto a plane tiled by regular hexagons of side length $14$ cm, the chance that it lands strictly inside of a hexagon can be written in the form $\frac{p}{q}$ , where $p$ and $q$ are relatively prime positive integers. Find $p + q$. [b]p5.[/b] Given that $A,C,E,I, P,$ and $M$ are distinct nonzero digits such that $$EPIC + EMCC + AMC = PEACE,$$ what is the least possible value of $PEACE$? [b]p6.[/b] A palindrome is a number that reads the same forwards and backwards. Call a number palindrome-ish if it is not a palindrome but we can make it a palindrome by changing one digit (we cannot change the first digit to zero). For instance, $4009$ is palindrome-ish because we can change the $4$ to a $9$. How many palindrome-ish four-digit numbers are there? [b]p7.[/b] Given that the heights of triangle $ABC$ have lengths $\frac{15}{7}$ , $5$, and $3$, what is the square of the area of $ABC$? [b]p8.[/b] Suppose that cubic polynomial $P(x)$ has leading coecient $1$ and three distinct real roots in the interval $[-20, 2]$. Given that the equation $P\left(x + \frac{1}{x} \right) = 0$ has exactly two distinct real solutions, the range of values that $P(3)$ can take is the open interval $(a, b)$. Compute $b - a$. [b]p9.[/b] Vincent the Bug has $17$ students in his class lined up in a row. Every day, starting on January $1$, $2021$, he performs the same series of swaps between adjacent students. One example of a series of swaps is: swap the $4$th and the $5$th students, then swap the $2$nd and the $3$rd, then the $3$rd and the $4$th. He repeats this series of swaps every day until the students are in the same arrangement as on January $1$. What is the greatest number of days this process could take? [b]p10.[/b] The summation $$\sum^{18}_{i=1}\frac{1}{i}$$ can be written in the form $\frac{a}{b}$ , where $a$ and $b$ are relatively prime positive integers. Compute the number of divisors of $b$. PS. You should use hide for answers. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309]here[/url].

Two mathematicians, lost in Berlin, arrived on the corner of Barbarossa street with Martin Luther street and need to arrive on the corner of Meininger street with Martin Luther street. Unfortunately they don't know which direction to go along Martin Luther Street to reach Meininger Street nor how far it is, so they must go fowards and backwards along Martin Luther street until they arrive on the desired corner. What is the smallest value for a positive integer $k$ so that they can be sure that if there are $N$ blocks between Barbarossa street and Meininger street then they can arrive at their destination by walking no more than $kN$ blocks (no matter what $N$ turns out to be)?

$n$ is a natural number. Given $3n \cdot 3n$ table, the unit cells are colored white and black such that starting from the left up corner diagonals are colored in pure white or black in ratio of 2:1 respectively. ( See the picture below). In one step any chosen $2 \cdot 2$ square's white cells are colored orange, orange are colored black and black are colored white. Find all $n$ such that with finite steps, all the white cells in the table turns to black, and all black cells in the table turns to white. ( From starting point)

Call a positive integer [i]challenging[/i] if it can be expressed as $2^a(2^b+1)$, where $a,b$ are positive integers. Prove that if $X$ is a set of challenging numbers smaller than $2^n (n$ is a given positive integer) and $|X|\ge \frac{4}{3}(n-1)$, there exist two disjoint subsets $A,B\subset X$ such that $|A|=|B|$ and $\sum_{a\in A}a=\sum_{b \in B}b$.

Let $S$ be a string of $99$ characters, $66$ of which are $A$ and $33$ are $B$. We call $S$ [i]good[/i] if, for each $n$ such that $1\le n \le 99$, the sub-string made from the first $n$ characters of $S$ has an odd number of distinct permutations. How many good strings are there? Which strings are good?

Consider a polynomial $P(x) = \prod^9_{j=1}(x+d_j),$ where $d_1, d_2, \ldots d_9$ are nine distinct integers. Prove that there exists an integer $N,$ such that for all integers $x \geq N$ the number $P(x)$ is divisible by a prime number greater than 20. [i]Proposed by Luxembourg[/i]

On a circle there are some black and white points (there are at least $12$ points). Each point has $10$ neighbors ($5$ left and $5$ right neighboring points), $5$ being black and $5$ white. Prove that the number of points on the circle is divisible by $4$.

let $ V$ be a finitive set and $ g$ and $ f$ be two injective surjective functions from $ V$to$ V$.let $ T$ and $ S$ be two sets such that they are defined as following" $ S \equal{} \{w \in V: f(f(w)) \equal{} g(g(w))\}$ $ T \equal{} \{w \in V: f(g(w)) \equal{} g(f(w))\}$ we know that $ S \cup T \equal{} V$, prove: for each $ w \in V : f(w) \in S$ if and only if $ g(w) \in S$

Initially we have a $2 \times 2$ table with at least one grain of wheat on each cell. In each step we may perform one of the following two kinds of moves: $i.$ If there is at least one grain on every cell of a row, we can take away one grain from each cell in that row. $ii.$ We can double the number of grains on each cell of an arbitrary column. a) Show that it is possible to reach the empty table using the above moves, starting from the position down below. b) Show that it is possible to reach the empty table from any starting position. c) Prove that the same is true for the $8 \times 8$ tables as well.

The set $M= \{1;2;3;\ldots ; 29;30\}$ is divided in $k$ subsets such that if $a+b=n^2, (a,b \in M, a\neq b, n$ is an integer number $)$, then $a$ and $b$ belong different subsets. Determine the minimum value of $k$.

Let $a_0, a_1, \ldots, a_9$ and $b_1 , b_2, \ldots,b_9$ be positive integers such that $a_9<b_9$ and $a_k \neq b_k, 1 \leq k \leq 8.$ In a cash dispenser/automated teller machine/ATM there are $n\geq a_9$ levs (Bulgarian national currency) and for each $1 \leq i \leq 9$ we can take $a_i$ levs from the ATM (if in the bank there are at least $a_i$ levs). Immediately after that action the bank puts $b_i$ levs in the ATM or we take $a_0$ levs. If we take $a_0$ levs from the ATM the bank doesn’t put any money in the ATM. Find all possible positive integer values of $n$ such that after finite number of takings money from the ATM there will be no money in it.

The continent of Trianglandia is an equilateral triangle of side length $9$, divided into $81$ triangular countries of side length $1$. Each country has the resources to choose at most $1$ of its $3$ sides and build a “wall” covering that entire side. However, since all the countries are at war, no two countries are willing to have their walls touch, even at a corner. What is the maximum number of walls that can be built in Trianglandia?

suppose that $\mathcal F\subseteq X^{(K)}$ and $|X|=n$. we know that for every three distinct elements of $\mathcal F$ like $A,B$ and $C$ we have $A\cap B \not\subset C$. a)(10 points) Prove that : \[|\mathcal F|\le \dbinom{k}{\lfloor\frac{k}{2}\rfloor}+1\] b)(15 points) if elements of $\mathcal F$ do not necessarily have $k$ elements, with the above conditions show that: \[|\mathcal F|\le \dbinom{n}{\lceil\frac{n-2}{3}\rceil}+2\]

The four bottom corners of a cube are colored red, green, blue, and purple. How many ways are there to color the top four corners of the cube so that every face has four different colored corners? Prove that your answer is correct.

Let $n$ be a positive integer. Two players $A$ and $B$ play a game in which they take turns choosing positive integers $k \le n$. The rules of the game are: (i) A player cannot choose a number that has been chosen by either player on any previous turn. (ii) A player cannot choose a number consecutive to any of those the player has already chosen on any previous turn. (iii) The game is a draw if all numbers have been chosen; otherwise the player who cannot choose a number anymore loses the game. The player $A$ takes the first turn. Determine the outcome of the game, assuming that both players use optimal strategies. [i]Proposed by Finland[/i]

A light has been placed on every lattice point (point with integer coordinates) on the (infinite) 2$D$ plane. Dene the Chebyshev distance between points $(x_1,y_1)$ and $(x_2, y_2)$ to be $\ max (|x_1 - x_2|, |y_1 -y_2|)$. Each light is turned on with probability $\frac{1}{2^{d/2}}$ , where $d$ is the Chebyshev distance from that point to the origin. What is expected number of lights that have all their directly adjacent lights turned on? (Adjacent points being points such that $|x_1-x_2|+|y_1- y_2| =1$.)