Consider a $ n\times n $ square grid which is divided into $ n^2 $ unit squares(think of a chess-board). The set of all unit squares intersecting the main diagonal of the square or lying under it is called an $n$-staircase. Find the number of ways in which an $n$-stair case can be partitioned into several rectangles, with sides along the grid lines, having mutually distinct areas.

7. There are 100 chess bishops on white squares of a $100 \times 100$ chess board. Some of them are white and some of them are black. They can move in any order and capture the bishops of opposing color. What number of moves is sufficient for sure to retain only one bishop on the chess board?

A set \(A\) of real numbers is framed when it is bounded and, for all \(a, b \in A\), not necessarily distinct, \((a-b)^{2} \in A\). What is the smallest real number that belongs to some framed set?

On a circle there are given $ n\plus{}3$ distinct points,from which $ n$ are colored red, two yellow, and one blue. Determine the number of polygons which have a) the vertices of the same color b) the vertices of two colors c) the vertices of three colors.

There are $n$ sheep and a wolf in sheep's clothing . Some of the sheep are friends (friendship is mutual). The goal of the wolf is to eat all the sheep. First, the wolf chooses some sheep to make friend's with. In each of the following days, the wolf eats one of its friends. Whenever the wolf eats a sheep $A$: (a) If a friend of $A$ is originally a friend of the wolf, it un-friends the wolf. (b) If a friend of $A$ is originally not a friend of the wolf, it becomes a friend of the wolf. Repeat the procedure until the wolf has no friend left. Find the largest integer $m$ in terms of $n$ satisfying the following: There exists an initial friendsheep structure such that the wolf has $m$ different ways of choosing initial sheep to become friends, so that the wolf has a way to eat all of the sheep.

There is a $2012\times 2012$ grid with rows numbered $1,2,\dots 2012$ and columns numbered $1,2,\dots, 2012$, and we place some rectangular napkins on it such that the sides of the napkins all lie on grid lines. Each napkin has a positive integer thickness. (in micrometers!) (a) Show that there exist $2012^2$ unique integers $a_{i,j}$ where $i,j \in [1,2012]$ such that for all $x,y\in [1,2012]$, the sum \[ \sum _{i=1}^{x} \sum_{j=1}^{y} a_{i,j} \] is equal to the sum of the thicknesses of all the napkins that cover the grid square in row $x$ and column $y$. (b) Show that if we use at most $500,000$ napkins, at least half of the $a_{i,j}$ will be $0$. [i]Proposed by Ray Li[/i]

Let $p$ be an odd prime, and put $N=\frac{1}{4} (p^3 -p) -1.$ The numbers $1,2, \dots, N$ are painted arbitrarily in two colors, red and blue. For any positive integer $n \leqslant N,$ denote $r(n)$ the fraction of integers $\{ 1,2, \dots, n \}$ that are red. Prove that there exists a positive integer $a \in \{ 1,2, \dots, p-1\}$ such that $r(n) \neq a/p$ for all $n = 1,2, \dots , N.$ [I]Netherlands[/i]

A [i]Nim-style game[/i] is defined as follows. Two positive integers $k$ and $n$ are specified, along with a finite set $S$ of $k$-tuples of integers (not necessarily positive). At the start of the game, the $k$-tuple $(n, 0, 0, ..., 0)$ is written on the blackboard. A legal move consists of erasing the tuple $(a_1,a_2,...,a_k)$ which is written on the blackboard and replacing it with $(a_1+b_1, a_2+b_2, ..., a_k+b_k)$, where $(b_1, b_2, ..., b_k)$ is an element of the set $S$. Two players take turns making legal moves, and the first to write a negative integer loses. In the event that neither player is ever forced to write a negative integer, the game is a draw. Prove that there is a choice of $k$ and $S$ with the following property: the first player has a winning strategy if $n$ is a power of 2, and otherwise the second player has a winning strategy. [i]Proposed by Linus Hamilton[/i]

Every two residents of a city have an even number of common friends in the city. One day, some of the people sent postcards to some of their friends. Each resident with odd number of friends sent exactly one postcard, and every other - no more than one. Every resident received no more than one postcard. Prove that the number of ways the cards could be sent is odd.

[u]Round 1[/u] [b]p1.[/b] Every angle of a regular polygon has degree measure $179.99$ degrees. How many sides does it have? [b]p2.[/b] What is $\frac{1}{20} + \frac{1}{1}+ \frac{1}{5}$ ? [b]p3.[/b] If the area bounded by the lines $y = 0$, $x = 0$, and $x = 3$ and the curve $y = f(x)$ is $10$ units, what is the area bounded by $y = 0$, $x = 0$, $x = 6$, and $y = f(x/2)$? [u]Round 2[/u] [b]p4.[/b] How many ways can $42$ be expressed as the sum of $2$ or more consecutive positive integers? [b]p5.[/b] How many integers less than or equal to $2015$ can be expressed as the sum of $2$ (not necessarily distinct) powers of two? [b]p6.[/b] $p,q$, and $q^2 - p^2$ are all prime. What is $pq$? [u]Round 3[/u] [b]p7.[/b] Let $p(x) = x^2 + ax + a$ be a polynomial with integer roots, where $a$ is an integer. What are all the possible values of $a$? [b]p8.[/b] In a given right triangle, the perimeter is $30$ and the sum of the squares of the sides is $338$. Find the lengths of the three sides. [b]p9.[/b] Each of the $6$ main diagonals of a regular hexagon is drawn, resulting in $6$ triangles. Each of those triangles is then split into $4$ equilateral triangles by connecting the midpoints of the $3$ sides. How many triangles are in the resulting figure? [u]Round 4[/u] [b]p10.[/b] Let $f = 5x+3y$, where $x$ and $y$ are positive real numbers such that $xy$ is $100$. Find the minimum possible value of $f$. [b]p11.[/b] An integer is called "Awesome" if its base $8$ expression contains the digit string $17$ at any point (i.e. if it ever has a $1$ followed immediately by a $7$). How many integers from $1$ to $500$ (base $10$) inclusive are Awesome? [b]p12.[/b] A certain pool table is a rectangle measuring $15 \times 24$ feet, with $4$ holes, one at each vertex. When playing pool, Joe decides that a ball has to hit at least $2$ sides before getting into a hole or else the shot does not count. What is the minimum distance a ball can travel after being hit on this table if it was hit at a vertex (assume it only stops after going into a hole) such that the shot counts? PS. You should use hide for answers. Rounds 5-8 have been posted [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c3h3157013p28696685]here [/url] and 9-12 [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c3h3158564p28715928]here[/url]. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309]here[/url].

Let $n>1$ be a positive integer. Ana and Bob play a game with other $n$ people. The group of $n$ people form a circle, and Bob will put either a black hat or a white one on each person's head. Each person can see all the hats except for his own one. They will guess the color of his own hat individually. Before Bob distribute their hats, Ana gives $n$ people a strategy which is the same for everyone. For example, it could be "guessing the color just on your left" or "if you see an odd number of black hats, then guess black; otherwise, guess white". Ana wants to maximize the number of people who guesses the right color, and Bob is on the contrary. Now, suppose Ana and Bob are clever enough, and everyone forms a strategy strictly. How many right guesses can Ana guarantee? [i]Proposed by China.[/i]

In a game, there are several tiles of different colors and scores. Two white tiles are equal to three yellow tiles, a yellow tile equals $5$ red chips, $3$ red tile are equal to $ 8$ black tiles, and a black tile is worth $15$. i) Find the values ​​of all the tiles. ii) Determine in how many ways the tiles can be chosen so that their scores add up to $560$ and there are no more than five tiles of the same color.

An encyclopedia consists of ${2000}$ numbered volumes. The volumes are stacked in order with number ${1}$ on top and ${2000}$ in the bottom. One may perform two operations with the stack: (i) For ${n}$ even, one may take the top ${n}$ volumes and put them in the bottom of the stack without changing the order. (ii) For ${n}$ odd, one may take the top ${n}$ volumes, turn the order around and put them on top of the stack again. How many different permutations of the volumes can be obtained by using these two operations repeatedly?

In a certain language there are $n$ letters. A sequence of letters is a word, if there are no two equal letters between two other equal letters. Find the number of words of the maximum length.

A $2^{2014} + 1$ by $2^{2014} + 1$ grid has some black squares filled. The filled black squares form one or more snakes on the plane, each of whose heads splits at some points but never comes back together. In other words, for every positive integer $n$ greater than $2$, there do not exist pairwise distinct black squares $s_1$, $s_2$, \dots, $s_n$ such that $s_i$ and $s_{i+1}$ share an edge for $i=1,2, \dots, n$ (here $s_{n+1}=s_1$). What is the maximum possible number of filled black squares? [i]Proposed by David Yang[/i]

Let $n$ be a positive integer. Each square of a $(2n-1) \times (2n - 1)$ square board contains an arrow, either pointing up, down,to the left, or to the right. A beetle sits in one of the cells. Each year it creeps from one square in the direction of the arrow in that square, either reaching another square or leaving the board. Each time the beetle moves, the arrow in the square it leaves turns $\frac{\pi}{2}$ clockwise. Prove that the beetle leaves the board in at most $2^{3n-1}(n-1)!-4$ years after it first moves.

In a country there are two-way non-stopflights between some pairs of cities. Any city can be reached from any other by a sequence of at most $100$ flights. Moreover, any city can be reached from any other by a sequence of an even number of flights. What is the smallest $d$ for which one can always claim that any city can be reached from any other by a sequence of an even number of flights not exceeding $d$?

Let $n$ be a positive integer. We start with $n$ piles of pebbles, each initially containing a single pebble. One can perform moves of the following form: choose two piles, take an equal number of pebbles from each pile and form a new pile out of these pebbles. Find (in terms of $n$) the smallest number of nonempty piles that one can obtain by performing a finite sequence of moves of this form.

Find all finite sets $S$ of points in the plane with the following property: for any three distinct points $A,B,$ and $C$ in $S,$ there is a fourth point $D$ in $S$ such that $A,B,C,$ and $D$ are the vertices of a parallelogram (in some order).

Each cell of an $n \times n$ board is colored either black or white. A coloring is called [i]good[/i] if every $2 \times 2$ square contains an even number of black cells, and every cross contains an odd number of black cells. Determine all $n \geqslant 3$ such that, in every good coloring, the four corner cells of the board are the same color. [b]Note:[/b] Each $2 \times 2$ square contains exactly $4$ cells of the board. Each cross contains exactly $5$ cells of the board. [asy] size(5cm); // Function to draw a filled square centered at a given position void drawFilledSquare(pair center, real sideLength) { real halfSide = sideLength / 2; fill(shift(center) * box((-halfSide, -halfSide), (halfSide, halfSide)), lightgray); draw(shift(center) * box((-halfSide, -halfSide), (halfSide, halfSide))); } // Side length of each square real sideLength = 1; // Coordinates for the cross (left shape) pair[] crossPositions = { (0, 0), (-1, 0), (1, 0), (0, -1), (0, 1) }; // Coordinates for the square (right shape) pair[] squarePositions = { (3, -0.5), (3, 0.5), (4, -0.5), (4, 0.5) }; // Draw the cross for (pair pos : crossPositions) { drawFilledSquare(pos, sideLength); } // Draw the square for (pair pos : squarePositions) { drawFilledSquare(pos, sideLength); } [/asy]

Marisa has a collection of $2^8-1=255$ distinct nonempty subsets of $\{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8\}$. For each step she takes two subsets chosen uniformly at random from the collection, and replaces them with either their union or their intersection, chosen randomly with equal probability. (The collection is allowed to contain repeated sets.) She repeats this process $2^8-2=254$ times until there is only one set left in the collection. What is the expected size of this set?

Let $G$ be a simple graph on $n$ vertices with at least one edge, and let us consider those $S:V(G)\to\mathbb R^{\ge 0}$ weighings of the vertices of the graph for which $\sum_{v\in V(G)} S(v)=1$. Furthermore define \[f(G)=\max_S\min_{(v,w)\in E(G)}S(v)S(w),\] where $S$ runs through all possible weighings. Prove that $f(G)=\frac1{n^2}$ if and only if the vertices of $G$ can be covered with a disjoint union of edges and odd cycles. ($V(G)$ denotes the vertices of graph $G$, $E(G)$ denotes the edges of graph $G$.)

Let $n \geq 3$ be a positive integer. Find the maximum number of diagonals in a regular $n$-gon one can select, so that any two of them do not intersect in the interior or they are perpendicular to each other.

In the Euclidean three-dimensional space, we call [i]folding[/i] of a sphere $S$ every partition of $S \setminus \{x,y\}$ into disjoint circles, where $x$ and $y$ are two points of $S$. A folding of $S$ is called [b]linear[/b] if the circles of the [i]folding[/i] are obtained by the intersection of $S$ with a family of parallel planes or with a family of planes containing a straight line $D$ exterior to $S$. Is every [i]folding[/i] of a sphere $S$ [b]linear[/b]?

Let $A$ be the number of ways in which the set $\{ 1, 2, . . . , n\}$ can be partitioned into non-empty subsets. Let $B$ be the number of ways in which the set $\{ 1, 2, . . . , n, n + 1 \}$ can be partitioned into non-empty subsets such that consecutive numbers belong to distinct subsets. Partitions that differ only in the order of the subsets are considered equal. Prove that $A = B$.