A switch has two inputs $1, 2$ and two outputs $1, 2$. It either connects $1$ to $1$ and $2$ to $2$, or $1$ to $2$ and $2$ to 1. If you have three inputs $1, 2, 3$ and three outputs $1, 2, 3$, then you can use three switches, the first across $1$ and $2$, then the second across $2$ and $3$, and finally the third across $1$ and $2$. It is easy to check that this allows the output to be any permutation of the inputs and that at least three switches are required to achieve this. What is the minimum number of switches required for $4$ inputs, so that by suitably setting the switches the output can be any permutation of the inputs?

We color each unit square of a $8\times 8$ table into green or blue such that there are $a$ green unit squares in each $3 \times 3$ square and $b$ green unit squares in each $2 \times 4$ rectangle. Find all possible values of $(a, b)$. (Le Anh Vinh)

Several boxes are arranged in a circle. Each box may be empty or may contain one or several chips. A move consists of taking all the chips from some box and distributing them one by one into subsequent boxes clockwise starting from the next box in the clockwise direction. (a) Suppose that on each move (except for the first one) one must take the chips from the box where the last chip was placed on the previous move. Prove that after several moves the initial distribution of the chips among the boxes will reappear. (b) Now, suppose that in each move one can take the chips from any box. Is it true that for every initial distribution of the chips you can get any possible distribution?

[color=darkblue]Weightlifter Ruslan has just finished the exercise with a weight, which has $ n$ small weights on one side and $ n$ on the another. At each stage he takes some weights from one of the sides, such that at any moment the difference of the numbers of weights on the sides does not exceed $ k$. What is the minimal number of stages (in function if $ n$ and $ k$), which Ruslan need to take off all weights..[/color]

In a blackboard there are $K$ circles in a row such that one of the numbers $1,...,K$ is assigned to each circle from the left to the right. Change of situation of a circle is to write in it or erase the number which is assigned to it.At the beginning no number is written in its own circle. For every positive divisor $d$ of $K$ ,$1\leq d\leq K$ we change the situation of the circles in which their assigned numbers are divisible by $d$,performing for each divisor $d$ $K$ changes of situation. Determine the value of $K$ for which the following holds;when this procedure is applied once for all positive divisors of $K$ ,then all numbers $1,2,3,...,K$ are written in the circles they were assigned in.

Sophie is at $(0,0)$ on a coordinate grid and would like to get to $(3,3).$ If Sophie is at $(x,y),$ in a single step she can move to one of $(x +1,y), (x,y + 1), (x - 1,y +1),$ or $(x +1,y -1).$ She cannot revisit any points along her path, and neither her $x$-coordinate nor her $y$-coordinate can ever be less than $0$ or greater than $3.$ Compute the number of ways for Sophie to reach $(3,3).$

Call a positive integer [i]almost square[/i] if it is not a perfect square, but all of its digits are perfect squares. For example, both $149$ and $904$ are almost square, but $144$ and $936$ are not. Find the number of positive integers less than $1000$ that are not almost square.

Let $p >3$ be a prime number. For each nonempty subset $T$ of $\{0,1,2,3, \ldots , p-1\}$, let $E(T)$ be the set of all $(p-1)$-tuples $(x_1, \ldots ,x_{p-1} )$, where each $x_i \in T$ and $x_1+2x_2+ \ldots + (p-1)x_{p-1}$ is divisible by $p$ and let $|E(T)|$ denote the number of elements in $E(T)$. Prove that \[|E(\{0,1,3\})| \geq |E(\{0,1,2\})|\] with equality if and only if $p = 5$.

[hide=D stands for Descartes, L stands for Leibniz]they had two problem sets under those two names[/hide] [u]Set 1[/u] [b]D.1 / L.1[/b] Find the units digit of $3^{1^{3^{3^7}}}$. [b]D.2[/b] Find the positive solution to the equation $x^3 - x^2 = x - 1$. [b]D.3[/b] Points $A$ and $B$ lie on a unit circle centered at O and are distance $1$ apart. What is the degree measure of $\angle AOB$? [b]D.4[/b] A number is a perfect square if it is equal to an integer multiplied by itself. How many perfect squares are there between $1$ and $2019$, inclusive? [b]D.5[/b] Ted has four children of ages $10$, $12$, $15$, and $17$. In fifteen years, the sum of the ages of his children will be twice Ted’s age in fifteen years. How old is Ted now? [u]Set 2[/u] [b]D.6[/b] Mr. Schwartz is on the show Wipeout, and is standing on the first of $5$ balls, all in a row. To reach the finish, he has to jump onto each of the balls and collect the prize on the final ball. The probability that he makes a jump from a ball to the next is $1/2$, and if he doesn’t make the jump he will wipe out and no longer be able to finish. Find the probability that he will finish. [b]D.7 / L. 5[/b] Kevin has written $5$ MBMT questions. The shortest question is $5$ words long, and every other question has exactly twice as many words as a different question. Given that no two questions have the same number of words, how many words long is the longest question? [b]D.8 / L. 3[/b] Square $ABCD$ with side length $1$ is rolled into a cylinder by attaching side $AD$ to side $BC$. What is the volume of that cylinder? [b]D.9 / L.4[/b] Haydn is selling pies to Grace. He has $4$ pumpkin pies, $3$ apple pies, and $1$ blueberry pie. If Grace wants $3$ pies, how many different pie orders can she have? [b]D.10[/b] Daniel has enough dough to make $8$ $12$-inch pizzas and $12$ $8$-inch pizzas. However, he only wants to make $10$-inch pizzas. At most how many $10$-inch pizzas can he make? [u]Set 3[/u] [b]D.11 / L.2[/b] A standard deck of cards contains $13$ cards of each suit (clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades). After drawing $51$ cards from a randomly ordered deck, what is the probability that you have drawn an odd number of clubs? [b]D.12 / L. 7[/b] Let $s(n)$ be the sum of the digits of $n$. Let $g(n)$ be the number of times s must be applied to n until it has only $1$ digit. Find the smallest n greater than $2019$ such that $g(n) \ne g(n + 1)$. [b]D.13 / L. 8[/b] In the Montgomery Blair Meterology Tournament, individuals are ranked (without ties) in ten categories. Their overall score is their average rank, and the person with the lowest overall score wins. Alice, one of the $2019$ contestants, is secretly told that her score is $S$. Based on this information, she deduces that she has won first place, without tying with anyone. What is the maximum possible value of $S$? [b]D.14 / L. 9[/b] Let $A$ and $B$ be opposite vertices on a cube with side length $1$, and let $X$ be a point on that cube. Given that the distance along the surface of the cube from $A$ to $X$ is $1$, find the maximum possible distance along the surface of the cube from $B$ to $X$. [b]D.15[/b] A function $f$ with $f(2) > 0$ satisfies the identity $f(ab) = f(a) + f(b)$ for all $a, b > 0$. Compute $\frac{f(2^{2019})}{f(23)}$. PS. You should use hide for answers. D.1-15 / L1-9 problems have been collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c3h2790795p24541357]here [/url] and L10,16-30 [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c3h2790825p24541816]here[/url]. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309]here[/url].

The following operation is allowed on a finite graph: Choose an arbitrary cycle of length 4 (if there is any), choose an arbitrary edge in that cycle, and delete it from the graph. For a fixed integer ${n\ge 4}$, find the least number of edges of a graph that can be obtained by repeated applications of this operation from the complete graph on $n$ vertices (where each pair of vertices are joined by an edge). [i]Proposed by Norman Do, Australia[/i]

Consider a $2\times2$ square with one corner removed from $1\times1$ , leaving a shape in the form of $L$ . [asy] unitsize(0.5 cm); draw((1,0)--(1,2)--(0,2)--(0,0)--(2,0)--(2,1)--(0,1)); [/asy] We will call this figure [i]triomino[/i]. Determine all values of $m, n$ such that a rectangle of $m\times n$ can be exactly covered with triominos.

Three (not necessarily distinct) points in the plane which have integer coordinates between $ 1$ and $2020$, inclusive, are chosen uniformly at random. The probability that the area of the triangle with these three vertices is an integer is $a/b$ in lowest terms. If the three points are collinear, the area of the degenerate triangle is $0$. Find $a + b$.

Let $n \geq 3$ be a positive integer. In an election debate, we have $n$ seats arranged in a circle and these seats are numbered from $1$ to $n$, clockwise. In each of these chairs sits a politician, who can be a liar or an honest one. Lying politicians always tell lies, and honest politicians always tell the truth. At one heated moment in the debate, they accused each other of being liars, with the politician in chair $1$ saying that the politician immediately to his left is a liar, the politician in chair $2$ saying that all the $2$ politicians immediately to his left are liars, the politician in the char $3$ saying that all the $3$ politicians immediately to his left are liars, and so on. Note that the politician in chair $n$ accuses all $n$ politicians (including himself) of being liars. For what values of $n$ is this situation possible to happen?

[b]p1.[/b] To convert between Fahrenheit, $F$, and Celsius, $C$, the formula is $F = \frac95 C + 32$. Jennifer, having no time to be this precise, instead approximates the temperature of Fahrenheit, $\widehat F$, as $\widehat F = 2C + 30$. There is a range of temperatures $C_1 \le C \le C_2$ such that for any $C$ in this range, $| \widehat F - F| \le 5$. Compute the ordered pair $(C_1,C_2)$. [b]p2.[/b] Compute integer $x$ such that $x^{23} = 27368747340080916343$. [b]p3.[/b] The number of ways to flip $n$ fair coins such that there are no three heads in a row can be expressed with the recurrence relation $$ S(n + 1) = a_0 S(n) + a_1 S(n - 1) + ... + a_k S(n - k) $$ for sufficiently large $n$ and $k$ where $S(n)$ is the number of valid sequences of length $n$. What is $\sum^k_{n=0}|a_n|$? PS. You should use hide for answers. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309]here[/url].

$n$ teams participated in a basketball tournament. Each team has played with each team exactly one game. There was no tie. If in the end of the tournament the $i$-th team has $x_{i}$ wins and $y_{i}$ loses $(1\leq i \leq n)$ prove that: $\sum_{i=1}^{n} {x_{i}}^2=\sum_{i=1}^{n} {y_{i}}^2$

Let $S = \{(x, y) \in Z^2 | 0 \le x \le 11, 0\le y \le 9\}$. Compute the number of sequences $(s_0, s_1, . . . , s_n)$ of elements in $S$ (for any positive integer $n \ge 2$) that satisfy the following conditions: $\bullet$ $s_0 = (0, 0)$ and $s_1 = (1, 0)$, $\bullet$ $s_0, s_1, . . . , s_n$ are distinct, $\bullet$ for all integers $2 \le i \le n$, $s_i$ is obtained by rotating $s_{i-2}$ about $s_{i-1}$ by either $90^o$ or $180^o$ in the clockwise direction.

Is it possible to inscribe an $N$-gon in a circle so that all the lengths of its sides are different and all its angles (in degrees) are integer, where a) $N = 19$, b) $N = 20$ ? Mikhail Malkin

A two-person game is played with nine boxes arranged in a $3 \times 3$ square and with white and black stones. At each move a player puts three stones, not necessarily of the same colour, in three boxes in either a horizontal or a vertical line. No box can contain stones of different colours: if, for instance, a player puts a white stone in a box containing black stones the white stone and one of the black stones are removed from the box. The game is over when the centrebox and the cornerboxes contain one black stone and the other boxes are empty. At one stage of a game $x$ boxes contained one black stone each and the other boxes were empty. Determine all possible values for $x.$

On the plane we mark $n$ ($n > 2$) straight lines passing through one point $O$ in such a way that for any two of them there is a marked straight line that bisects one of the pairs of vertical angles, formed by these straight lines. Prove that the drawn straight lines divide full angle into equal parts.

Find all positive integers $n \geq 3$, for which it is possible to draw $n$ chords on a circle, with their $2n$ endpoints being pairwise distinct, such that each chords intersects exactly $k$ others for: (a) $k=n-2$, (b) $k=n-3$.

There is a single coin on each square of a $5 \times 5$ board. All the coins look the same. Two of them are fakes and have equal weight. Genuine coins are heavier than fake ones and also weigh the same. The fake coins are on the squares sharing just one vertice. Is it possible to determine for sure a) 13 genuine coins; b) 15 genuine coins; and c) 17 genuine coins in a single weighing on a balance with no unit weights? [i]Rustem Zhenodarov, Alexandr Gribalko, Sergey Tokarev[/i]

For a given positive integer $k$ find, in terms of $k$, the minimum value of $N$ for which there is a set of $2k + 1$ distinct positive integers that has sum greater than $N$ but every subset of size $k$ has sum at most $\tfrac{N}{2}.$

For any two nonnegative integers $n$ and $k$ satisfying $n\geq k$, we define the number $c(n,k)$ as follows: - $c\left(n,0\right)=c\left(n,n\right)=1$ for all $n\geq 0$; - $c\left(n+1,k\right)=2^{k}c\left(n,k\right)+c\left(n,k-1\right)$ for $n\geq k\geq 1$. Prove that $c\left(n,k\right)=c\left(n,n-k\right)$ for all $n\geq k\geq 0$.

Alice and Bob play the following game. They write the expressions $x + y$, $x - y$, $x^2+xy+y^2$ and $x^2-xy+y^2$ each on a separate card. The four cards are shuffled and placed face down on a table. One of the cards is turned over, revealing the expression written on it, after which Alice chooses any two of the four cards, and gives the other two to Bob. All cards are then revealed. Now Alice picks one of the variables $x$ and $y$, assigns a real value to it, and tells Bob what value she assigned and to which variable. Then Bob assigns a real value to the other variable. Finally, they both evaluate the product of the expressions on their two cards. Whoever gets the larger result, wins. Which player, if any, has a winning strategy?

Prove that there exist (a) 5 points in the plane so that among all the triangles with vertices among these points there are 8 right-angled ones; (b) 64 points in the plane so that among all the triangles with vertices among these points there are at least 2005 right-angled ones.