Two buckets each have four balls; two red balls and two white balls in the first, and two red balls and two blue balls in the second. At first, a bucket is selected, then a ball in the bucket is selected, with both buckets and balls inside the selected bucket having equal probability of being chosen. Then, without replacement of the first ball, the process is repeated once more. Determine the probability that the first ball drawn being red if the second ball drawn was blue.

Show that, in a chessboard, it is possible to traverse to any given square from another given square using a knight. (A knight can move in a chessboard by going two steps in one direction and one step in a perpendicular direction as shown in the given figure)

Let $N$ be a positive integer. Initially, a positive integer $A$ is written on the board. At each step, we can perform one of the following two operations with the number written on the board: (i) Add $N$ to the number written on the board and replace that number with the sum obtained; (ii) If the number on the board is greater than $1$ and has at least one digit $1$, then we can remove the digit $1$ from that number, and replace the number initially written with this one (with removal of possible leading zeros) For example, if $N = 63$ and $A = 25$, we can do the following sequence of operations: $$25 \rightarrow 88 \rightarrow 151 \rightarrow 51 \rightarrow 5$$ And if $N = 143$ and $A = 2$, we can do the following sequence of operations: $$2 \rightarrow 145 \rightarrow 288 \rightarrow 431 \rightarrow 574 \rightarrow 717 \rightarrow 860 \rightarrow 1003 \rightarrow 3$$ For what values of $N$ is it always possible, regardless of the initial value of $A$ on the blackboard, to obtain the number $1$ on the blackboard, through a finite number of operations?

Alphonse and Beryl play a game involving $n$ safes. Each safe can be opened by a unique key and each key opens a unique safe. Beryl randomly shuffles the $n$ keys, and after placing one key inside each safe, she locks all of the safes with her master key. Alphonse then selects $m$ of the safes (where $m < n$), and Beryl uses her master key to open just the safes that Alphonse selected. Alphonse collects all of the keys inside these $m$ safes and tries to use these keys to open up the other $n - m$ safes. If he can open a safe with one of the $m$ keys, he can then use the key in that safe to try to open any of the remaining safes, repeating the process until Alphonse successfully opens all of the safes, or cannot open any more. Let $P_m(n)$ be the probability that Alphonse can eventually open all $n$ safes starting from his initial selection of $m$ keys. (a) Show that $P_2(3) = \frac23$. (b) Prove that $P_1(n) = \frac1n$. (c) For all integers $n \geq 2$, prove that $$P_2(n) = \frac2n \cdot P_1(n-1) + \frac{n-2}{n} \cdot P_2(n-1).$$ (d) Determine a formula for $P_2 (n)$.

In the convex $(2n+2) $-gon are drawn $n^2$ diagonals. Prove that one of these of diagonals cuts the $(2n+2)$ -gon into two polygons, each of which has an odd number vertices.

Let n$\ge$2.Each 1x1 square of a nxn board is colored in black or white such that every black square has at least 3 white neighbors(Two squares are neighbors if they have a common side).What is the maximum number of black squares?

Suppose that $n$ squares of an infinite square grid are colored grey, and the rest are colored white. At each step, a new grid of squares is obtained based on the previous one, as follows. For each location in the grid, examine that square, the square immediately above, and the square immediately to the right. If there are two or three grey squares among these three, then in the next grid, color that location grey, otherwise, color it white. Prove that after at most n steps all the squares in the grid will be white. Below is an example with $n = 4$. The first grid shows the initial configuration, and the second grid shows the configuration after one step. [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/1/a/87f7e3892cdb45fb3529127234aae2cea08749.png[/img]

Each of the $15$ coaches ranked the $50$ selected football players on the places from $1$ to $50$. For each football player, the highest and lowest obtained ranks differ by at most $5$. For each of the players, the sum of the ranks he obtained is computed, and the sums are denoted by $S_1\le S_2\le\ldots\le S_{50}$. Find the largest possible value of $S_1$.

There are $2022$ stones on a table. At the start of the game, Teacher Tseng will choose a positive integer $m$ and let Ming and LTF play a game. LTF is the first to move, and he can remove at most $m$ stones on his round. Then the two people take turns removing stone, each round they must remove at least one stone, and they cannot remove more than twice the amount of stones the last person removed. The player unable to move loses. Find the smallest positive integer $m$ such that LTF has a winning strategy. [i]Proposed by ltf0501[/i]

Prove that there exists a $k_0\in\mathbb{N}$ such that for every $k\in\mathbb{N},k>k_0$, there exists a finite number of lines in the plane not all parallel to one of them, that divide the plane exactly in $k$ regions. Find $k_0$.

We have a row of 203 cells. Initially the leftmost cell contains 203 tokens, and the rest are empty. On each move we can do one of the following: 1)Take one token, and move it to an adjacent cell (left or right). 2)Take exactly 20 tokens from the same cell, and move them all to an adjacent cell (all left or all right). After 2023 moves each cell contains one token. Prove that there exists a token that moved left at least nine times.

There are $n$ pieces on the squares of a $5 \times 9$ board, at most one on each square at any time during the game. A move in the game consists of simultaneously moving each piece to a neighboring square by side, under the restriction that a piece having been moved horizontally in the previous move must be moved vertically and vice versa. Find the greatest value of $n$ for which there exists an initial position starting at which the game can be continued until the end of the world.

Mike has $1000$ unit cubes. Each has $2$ opposite red faces, $2$ opposite blue faces and $2$ opposite white faces. Mike assembles them into a $10 \times 10 \times 10$ cube. Whenever two unit cubes meet face to face, these two faces have the same colour. Prove that an entire face of the $10 \times 10 \times 10$ cube has the same colour. [i](6 points)[/i]

Let $x_1,\dots ,x_n$ be real numbers. We look at all the $2^{n-1}$ possible sums between some of the numbers. If the number of different sums is at least $1.8^n$, prove that the number of sums equal to $2022$ is no more than $1.67^n$.

There is a regular $17$-gon $\mathcal{P}$ and its circumcircle $\mathcal{Y}$ on the plane. The vertices of $\mathcal{P}$ are coloured in such a way that $A,B \in \mathcal{P}$ are of different colour, if the shorter arc connecting $A$ and $B$ on $\mathcal{Y}$ has $2^k+1$ vertices, for some $k \in \mathbb{N},$ including $A$ and $B.$ What is the least number of colours which suffices?

Euler marks $n$ different points in the Euclidean plane. For each pair of marked points, Gauss writes down the number $\lfloor \log_2 d \rfloor$ where $d$ is the distance between the two points. Prove that Gauss writes down less than $2n$ distinct values. [i]Note:[/i] For any $d>0$, $\lfloor \log_2 d\rfloor$ is the unique integer $k$ such that $2^k\le d<2^{k+1}$. [i]Proposed by Pranjal Srivastava[/i]

Let $A(n)$ denote the number of sequences $a_1\ge a_2\ge\cdots{}\ge a_k$ of positive integers for which $a_1+\cdots{}+a_k = n$ and each $a_i +1$ is a power of two $(i = 1,2,\cdots{},k)$. Let $B(n)$ denote the number of sequences $b_1\ge b_2\ge \cdots{}\ge b_m$ of positive integers for which $b_1+\cdots{}+b_m =n$ and each inequality $b_j\ge 2b_{j+1}$ holds $(j=1,2,\cdots{}, m-1)$. Prove that $A(n) = B(n)$ for every positive integer $n$. [i]Senior Problems Committee of the Australian Mathematical Olympiad Committee[/i]

Prove that among $39$ consecutive natural numbers, there is always one whose sum of digits (in base $10$) is divisible by $11$.

A graph has $ n$ vertices and $ \frac {1}{2}\left(n^2 \minus{} 3n \plus{} 4\right)$ edges. There is an edge such that, after removing it, the graph becomes unconnected. Find the greatest possible length $ k$ of a circuit in such a graph.

Erica intends to construct a subset $T$ of $S=\{ I,J,K,L,M,N \}$, but if she is unsure about including an element $x$ of $S$ in $T$, she will write $x$ in bold and include it in $T$. For example, $\{ I,J \},$ $\{ J,\mathbf{K},L \},$ and $\{ \mathbf{I},\mathbf{J},\mathbf{M},\mathbf{N} \}$ are valid examples of $T$, while $\{ I,J,\mathbf{J},K \}$ is not. Find the total number of such subsets $T$ that Erica can construct.

There are $n\geq 3$ pupils standing in a circle, and always facing the teacher that stands at the centre of the circle. Each time the teacher whistles, two arbitrary pupils that stand next to each other switch their seats, while the others stands still. Find the least number $M$ such that after $M$ times of whistling, by appropriate switchings, the pupils stand in such a way that any two pupils, initially standing beside each other, will finally also stand beside each other; call these two pupils $ A$ and $ B$, and if $ A$ initially stands on the left side of $ B$ then $ A$ will finally stand on the right side of $ B$.

In a scientific conference, all participants can speak in total $2 \cdot n$ languages ($n \geq 2$). Each participant can speak exactly two languages and each pair of two participants can have at most one common language. It is known that for every integer $k$, $1 \leq k \leq n-1$ there are at most $k-1$ languages such that each of these languages is spoken by at most $k$ participants. Show that we can choose a group from $2 \cdot n$ participants which in total can speak $2 \cdot n$ languages and each language is spoken by exactly two participants from this group.

A polygon can be dissected into $100$ rectangles, but it cannot be dissected into $99$ rectangles. Prove that this polygon cannot be dissected into $100$ triangles.

1) Prove that there are infinitely many positive integers $n$ such that there exists a permutation of $1, 2, 3, . . . , n$ with the property that the difference between any two adjacent numbers is equal to either $2015$ or $2016$. 2) Let $k$ be a positive integer. Is the statement in 1) still true if we replace the numbers $2015$ and $2016$ by $k$ and $k + 2016$, respectively?

On each of the $2014^2$ squares of a $2014 \times 2014$-board a light bulb is put. Light bulbs can be either on or off. In the starting situation a number of the light bulbs is on. A move consists of choosing a row or column in which at least $1007$ light bulbs are on and changing the state of all $2014$ light bulbs in this row or column (from on to off or from off to on). Find the smallest non-negative integer $k$ such that from each starting situation there is a finite sequence of moves to a situation in which at most $k$ light bulbs are on.