Let $B$ be a set of $k$ sequences each having $n$ terms equal to $1$ or $-1$. The product of two such sequences $(a_1, a_2, \ldots , a_n)$ and $(b_1, b_2, \ldots , b_n)$ is defined as $(a_1b_1, a_2b_2, \ldots , a_nb_n)$. Prove that there exists a sequence $(c_1, c_2, \ldots , c_n)$ such that the intersection of $B$ and the set containing all sequences from $B$ multiplied by $(c_1, c_2, \ldots , c_n)$ contains at most $\frac{k^2}{2^n}$ sequences.

In the cabinet 2004 telephones are located; each two of these telephones are connected by a cable, which is colored in one of four colors. From each color there is one cable at least. Can one always select several telephones in such a way that among their pairwise cable connections exactly 3 different colors occur?

Let $a_1<a_2$ be two given integers. For any integer $n\ge 3$, let $a_n$ be the smallest integer which is larger than $a_{n-1}$ and can be uniquely represented as $a_i+a_j$, where $1\le i<j\le n-1$. Given that there are only a finite number of even numbers in $\{a_n\}$, prove that the sequence $\{a_{n+1}-a_{n}\}$ is eventually periodic, i.e. that there exist positive integers $T,N$ such that for all integers $n>N$, we have \[a_{T+n+1}-a_{T+n}=a_{n+1}-a_{n}.\]

Suppose that $1000$ students are standing in a circle. Prove that there exists an integer $k$ with $100 \leq k \leq 300$ such that in this circle there exists a contiguous group of $2k$ students, for which the first half contains the same number of girls as the second half. [i]Proposed by Gerhard Wöginger, Austria[/i]

Let $S$ be a set of $n$ points $P_1,P_2,\ldots,P_n$ in a plane such that no three of the points are collinear. Let $\alpha$ be the smallest of the angles $\angle P_iP_jP_k$ ($i\ne j\ne k\ne i,i,j,k\in\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$). Find $\max_S\alpha$ and determine those sets $S$ for which this maximal value is attained.

[b]p1.[/b] What is $20\times 20 - 19\times 19$? [b]p2.[/b] Andover has a total of $1440$ students and teachers as well as a $1 : 5$ teacher-to-student ratio (for every teacher, there are exactly $5$ students). In addition, every student is either a boarding student or a day student, and $70\%$ of the students are boarding students. How many day students does Andover have? [b]p3.[/b] The time is $2:20$. If the acute angle between the hour hand and the minute hand of the clock measures $x$ degrees, find $x$. [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/b/a/a18b089ae016b15580ec464c3e813d5cb57569.png[/img] [b]p4.[/b] Point $P$ is located on segment $AC$ of square $ABCD$ with side length $10$ such that $AP >CP$. If the area of quadrilateral $ABPD$ is $70$, what is the area of $\vartriangle PBD$? [b]p5.[/b] Andrew always sweetens his tea with sugar, and he likes a $1 : 7$ sugar-to-unsweetened tea ratio. One day, he makes a $100$ ml cup of unsweetened tea but realizes that he has run out of sugar. Andrew decides to borrow his sister's jug of pre-made SUPERSWEET tea, which has a $1 : 2$ sugar-to-unsweetened tea ratio. How much SUPERSWEET tea, in ml,does Andrew need to add to his unsweetened tea so that the resulting tea is his desired sweetness? [b]p6.[/b] Jeremy the architect has built a railroad track across the equator of his spherical home planet which has a radius of exactly $2020$ meters. He wants to raise the entire track $6$ meters off the ground, everywhere around the planet. In order to do this, he must buymore track, which comes from his supplier in bundles of $2$ meters. What is the minimum number of bundles he must purchase? Assume the railroad track was originally built on the ground. [b]p7.[/b] Mr. DoBa writes the numbers $1, 2, 3,..., 20$ on the board. Will then walks up to the board, chooses two of the numbers, and erases them from the board. Mr. DoBa remarks that the average of the remaining $18$ numbers is exactly $11$. What is the maximum possible value of the larger of the two numbers that Will erased? [b]p8.[/b] Nathan is thinking of a number. His number happens to be the smallest positive integer such that if Nathan doubles his number, the result is a perfect square, and if Nathan triples his number, the result is a perfect cube. What is Nathan's number? [b]p9.[/b] Let $S$ be the set of positive integers whose digits are in strictly increasing order when read from left to right. For example, $1$, $24$, and $369$ are all elements of $S$, while $20$ and $667$ are not. If the elements of $S$ are written in increasing order, what is the $100$th number written? [b]p10.[/b] Find the largest prime factor of the expression $2^{20} + 2^{16} + 2^{12} + 2^{8} + 2^{4} + 1$. [b]p11.[/b] Christina writes down all the numbers from $1$ to $2020$, inclusive, on a whiteboard. What is the sum of all the digits that she wrote down? [b]p12.[/b] Triangle $ABC$ has side lengths $AB = AC = 10$ and $BC = 16$. Let $M$ and $N$ be the midpoints of segments $BC$ and $CA$, respectively. There exists a point $P \ne A$ on segment $AM$ such that $2PN = PC$. What is the area of $\vartriangle PBC$? [b]p13.[/b] Consider the polynomial $$P(x) = x^4 + 3x^3 + 5x^2 + 7x + 9.$$ Let its four roots be $a, b, c, d$. Evaluate the expression $$(a + b + c)(a + b + d)(a + c + d)(b + c + d).$$ [b]p14.[/b] Consider the system of equations $$|y - 1| = 4 -|x - 1|$$ $$|y| =\sqrt{|k - x|}.$$ Find the largest $k$ for which this system has a solution for real values $x$ and $y$. [b]p16.[/b] Let $T_n = 1 + 2 + ... + n$ denote the $n$th triangular number. Find the number of positive integers $n$ less than $100$ such that $n$ and $T_n$ have the same number of positive integer factors. [b]p17.[/b] Let $ABCD$ be a square, and let $P$ be a point inside it such that $PA = 4$, $PB = 2$, and $PC = 2\sqrt2$. What is the area of $ABCD$? [b]p18.[/b] The Fibonacci sequence $\{F_n\}$ is defined as $F_0 = 0$, $F_1 = 1$, and $F_{n+2}= F_{n+1} + F_n$ for all integers $n \ge 0$. Let $$ S =\dfrac{1}{F_6 + \frac{1}{F_6}}+\dfrac{1}{F_8 + \frac{1}{F_8}}+\dfrac{1}{F_{10} +\frac{1}{F_{10}}}+\dfrac{1}{F_{12} + \frac{1}{F_{12}}}+ ... $$ Compute $420S$. [b]p19.[/b] Let $ABCD$ be a square with side length $5$. Point $P$ is located inside the square such that the distances from $P$ to $AB$ and $AD$ are $1$ and $2$ respectively. A point $T$ is selected uniformly at random inside $ABCD$. Let $p$ be the probability that quadrilaterals $APCT$ and $BPDT$ are both not self-intersecting and have areas that add to no more than $10$. If $p$ can be expressed in the form $\frac{m}{n}$ for relatively prime positive integers $m$ and $n$, find $m + n$. Note: A quadrilateral is self-intersecting if any two of its edges cross. PS. You should use hide for answers. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309]here[/url].

In a word formed with the letters $a,b$ we can change some blocks: $aba$ in $b$ and back, $bba$ in $a$ and backwards. If the initial word is $aaa\ldots ab$ where $a$ appears 2003 times can we reach the word $baaa\ldots a$, where $a$ appears 2003 times.

Find the number of triples of sets $(A, B, C)$ such that $A \cup B \cup C = \{1, 2, 3, ... , 2549\}$

On two sheets of paper are written more than one positive integers. On the first paper $n$ numbers are written and on the second paper $m$ numbers are written. If one number is written on any of the papers then on the first paper is written also the sum of that number and $13$, and on the second paper the difference of that number and $23$. Calculate the value of $\frac{m}{n}$. .

For a positive integer $n(\geq 2)$, there are $2n$ candies. Alice distributes $2n$ candies into $4n$ boxes $B_1, B_2, \dots, B_{4n}.$ Bob checks the number of candies that Alice puts in each box. After this, Bob chooses exactly $2n$ boxes $B_{k_1}, B_{k_2}, \dots, B_{k_{2n}}$ out of $4n$ boxes that satisfy the following condition, and takes all the candies. (Condition) $k_i - k_{i - 1}$ is either $1$ or $3$ for each $i = 1, 2, \dots, 2n$, and $k_{2n} = 4n$. ($k_0 = 0$) Alice takes all the candies in the $2n$ boxes that Bob did not choose. If Alice and Bob both use their best strategy to take as many candies as possible, how many candies can Alice take?

A box $3\times5\times7$ is divided into unit cube cells. In each of the cells, there is a c[i][/i]ockchafer. At a signal, every c[i][/i]ockchafer moves through a face of its cell to a neighboring cell. (a) What is the minimum number of empty cells after the signal? (b) The same question, assuming that the c[i][/i]ockchafers move to diagonally adjacent cells (sharing exactly one vertex).

Let $n$ be a given positive integer. Sisyphus performs a sequence of turns on a board consisting of $n + 1$ squares in a row, numbered $0$ to $n$ from left to right. Initially, $n$ stones are put into square $0$, and the other squares are empty. At every turn, Sisyphus chooses any nonempty square, say with $k$ stones, takes one of these stones and moves it to the right by at most $k$ squares (the stone should say within the board). Sisyphus' aim is to move all $n$ stones to square $n$. Prove that Sisyphus cannot reach the aim in less than \[ \left \lceil \frac{n}{1} \right \rceil + \left \lceil \frac{n}{2} \right \rceil + \left \lceil \frac{n}{3} \right \rceil + \dots + \left \lceil \frac{n}{n} \right \rceil \] turns. (As usual, $\lceil x \rceil$ stands for the least integer not smaller than $x$. )

Let $S$ be a set with 2002 elements, and let $N$ be an integer with $0 \leq N \leq 2^{2002}$. Prove that it is possible to color every subset of $S$ either black or white so that the following conditions hold: (a) the union of any two white subsets is white; (b) the union of any two black subsets is black; (c) there are exactly $N$ white subsets.

Determine the largest natural number $ N $ having the following property: every $ 5\times 5 $ array consisting of pairwise distinct natural numbers from $ 1 $ to $ 25 $ contains a $ 2\times 2 $ subarray of numbers whose sum is, at least, $ N. $ [i]Demetres Christofides[/i] and [i]Silouan Brazitikos[/i]

In the country of Muilejistan, there exists a network of roads connecting all its cities. The network has the particular property that for any two cities, there is a unique path without backtracking (i.e., a path where the traveler never returns along the same road). The longest possible path between two cities is 600 kilometers. For instance, the path from the city of Mlar to the city of Nlar is 600 kilometers. Similarly, the path from the city of Klar to the city of Glar is also 600 kilometers. 1. If Jalim departs from Mlar towards Nlar at noon and Kalim departs from Klar towards Glar also at noon, both traveling at the same speed, prove that they meet at some point on their journey. 2. If the distance in kilometers between any two cities is an integer, prove that the distance from Glar to Mlar is even.

In the diagram below $a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j$ are distinct positive integers and each (except $a, e, h$ and $j$) is the sum of the two numbers to the left and above. For example, $b = a + e, f = e + h, i = h + j$. What is the smallest possible value of $d$? j h i e f g a b c d

Gary is baking cakes, one at a time. However, Gary’s not been having much success, and each failed cake will cause him to slowly lose his patience, until eventually he gives up. Initially, a failed cake has a probability of $0$ of making him give up. Each cake has a $1/2$ of turning out well, with each cake independent of every other cake. If two consecutive cakes turn out well, the probability resets to $0$ immediately after the second cake. On the other hand, if the cake fails, assuming that he doesn’t give up at this cake, his probability of breaking on the next failed cake goes from p to $p + 0.5$. If the expected number of successful cakes Gary will bake until he gives up is$ p/q$, for relatively prime $p, q$, find $p + q$.

Prove that there are exactly $\binom{k}{[k/2]}$ arrays $a_1, a_2, \ldots , a_{k+1}$ of nonnegative integers such that $a_1 = 0$ and $|a_i-a_{i+1}| = 1$ for $i = 1, 2, \ldots , k.$

Consider the graph $G$ with $100$ vertices, and the minimum odd cycle goes through $13$ vertices. Prove that the vertices of the graph can be colored in $6$ colors in a way that no two adjacent vertices have the same color.

In every acyclic graph with 2022 vertices we can choose $k$ of the vertices such that every chosen vertex has at most 2 edges to chosen vertices. Find the maximum possible value of $k$.

Let $X$ be a finite set of real numbers. For any $x,x' \in X$ with $x<x'$, define a function $f(x,x')$, then $f$ is called an ordered pair function on $X$. For any given ordered pair function $f$ on $X$, if there exist elements $x_1 <x_2 <\cdots<x_k$ in $X$ such that $f(x_1 ,x_2 ) \le f(x_2 ,x_3 ) \le \cdots \le f(x_{k-1} ,x_k )$, then $x_1 ,x_2 ,\cdots,x_k$ is called an $f$-ascending sequence of length $k$ in $X$. Similarly, define an $f$-descending sequence of length $l$ in $X$. For integers $k,l \ge 3$, let $h(k,l)$ denote the smallest positive integer such that for any set $X$ of $s$ real numbers and any ordered pair function $f$ on $X$, there either exists an $f$-ascending sequence of length $k$ in $X$ or an $f$-descending sequence of length $l$ in $X$ if $s \ge h(k,l)$. Prove: 1.For $k,l>3,h(k,l) \le h(k-1,l)+h(k,l-1)-1$; 2.$h(k,l) \le \binom{l-2}{k+l-4} +1$.

There are a board with $2n \cdot 2n \ (= 4n^2)$ squares and $4n^2-1$ cards numbered with different natural numbers. These cards are put one by one on each of the squares. One square is empty. We can move a card to an empty square from one of the adjacent squares (two squares are adjacent if they have a common edge). Is it possible to exchange two cards on two adjacent squares of a column (or a row) in a finite number of movements?

When the IMO is over and students want to relax, they all do the same thing: download movies from the internet. There is a positive number of rooms with internet routers at the hotel, and each student wants to download a positive number of bits. The load of a room is defined as the total number of bits to be downloaded from that room. Nobody likes slow internet, and in particular each student has a displeasure equal to the product of her number of bits and the load of her room. The misery of the group is defined as the sum of the students’ displeasures. Right after the contest, students gather in the hotel lobby to decide who goes to which room. After much discussion they reach a balanced configuration: one for which no student can decrease her displeasure by unilaterally moving to another room. The misery of the group is computed to be $M_1$, and right when they seemed satisfied, Gugu arrived with a serendipitous smile and proposed another configuration that achieved misery $M_2$. What is the maximum value of $M_1/M_2$ taken over all inputs to this problem? [i]Proposed by Victor Reis (proglote), Brazil.[/i]

[b]p1.[/b] Show that the $n \times n$ determinant $$\begin{vmatrix} 1+x & 1 & 1 & . & . & . & 1 \\ 1 & 1+x & 1 & . & . & . & 1 \\ . & . & . & . & . & . & . \\ . & . & . & . & . & . & . \\ 1 & 1 & . & . & . & . & 1+x \\ \end{vmatrix}$$ has the value zero when $x = -n$ [b]p2.[/b] Let $c > a \ge b$ be the lengths of the sides of an obtuse triangle. Prove that $c^n = a^n + b^n$ for no positive integer $n$. [b]p3.[/b] Suppose that $p_1 = p_2^2+ p_3^2 + p_4^2$ , where $p_1$, $p_2$, $p_3$, and $p_4$ are primes. Prove that at least one of $p_2$, $p_3$, $p_4$ is equal to $3$. [b]p4.[/b] Suppose $X$ and $Y$ are points on tJhe boundary of the triangular region $ABC$ such that the segment $XY$ divides the region into two parts of equal area. If $XY$ is the shortest such segment and $AB = 5$, $BC = 4$, $AC = 3$ calculate the length of $XY$. Hint: Of all triangles having the same area and same vertex angle the one with the shortest base is isosceles. Clearly justify all claims. [b]p5.[/b] Find all solutions of the following system of simultaneous equations $$x + y + z = 7\,\, , \,\, x^2 + y^2 + z^2 = 31\,\,, \,\,x^3 + y^3 + z^3 = 154$$ PS. You should use hide for answers. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309]here[/url].

Let $f(k)$ be the number of integers $n$ satisfying the following conditions: (i) $0\leq n < 10^k$ so $n$ has exactly $k$ digits (in decimal notation), with leading zeroes allowed; (ii) the digits of $n$ can be permuted in such a way that they yield an integer divisible by $11$. Prove that $f(2m) = 10f(2m-1)$ for every positive integer $m$. [i]Proposed by Dirk Laurie, South Africa[/i]