A racing tournament has $12$ stages and $n$ participants. After each stage, all participants, depending on their place $k$, receive points $a_k$ (numbers $a_k$ are natural numbers and $a_1 > a_2 >... > a_n$). At what smallest $n$ can the organizer of the tournament choose numbers $a_1$, $...$ , $a_n$ so that after the penultimate stage for any possible distribution of places at least two participants had a chance to take first place?

An $8$ by $8$ board (with $64$ $1$ by $1$ squares) is painted white. We are allowed to choose any rectangle consisting of $3$ of the $64$ squares and paint each of the $3$ squares in the opposite colour (the white ones black, the black ones white). Is it possible to paint the entire board black by means of such operations? (IS Rubanov, Kirov)

There are $30$ apparently equal balls, $15$ of which have the weight $a$ and the remaining $15$ have the weight $b$ with $a \ne b$. The balls are to be partitioned into two groups of $15$, according to their weight. An assistant partitioned them into two groups, and we wish to check if this partition is correct. How can we check that with as few weighings as possible?

In how many ways every unit square of a $2018$ x $2018$ board can be colored in red or white such that number of red unit squares in any two rows are distinct and number of red squares in any two columns are distinct.

Ten gamblers started playing with the same amount of money. Each turn they cast (threw) five dice. At each stage the gambler who had thrown paid to each of his 9 opponents $\frac{1}{n}$ times the amount which that opponent owned at that moment. They threw and paid one after the other. At the 10th round (i.e. when each gambler has cast the five dice once), the dice showed a total of 12, and after payment it turned out that every player had exactly the same sum as he had at the beginning. Is it possible to determine the total shown by the dice at the nine former rounds ?

$ 1994$ girls are seated at a round table. Initially one girl holds $ n$ tokens. Each turn a girl who is holding more than one token passes one token to each of her neighbours. a.) Show that if $ n < 1994$, the game must terminate. b.) Show that if $ n \equal{} 1994$ it cannot terminate.

Batman, Robin, and The Joker are in three of the vertex cells in a square $2025 \times 2025$ board, such that Batman and Robin are on the same diagonal (picture). In each round, first The Joker moves to an adjacent cell (having a common side), without exiting the board. Then in the same round Batman and Robin move to an adjacent cell. The Joker wins if he reaches the fourth "target" vertex cell (marked T). Batman and Robin win if they catch The Joker i.e. at least one of them is on the same cell as The Joker. If in each move all three can see where the others moved, who has a winning strategy, The Joker, or Batman and Robin? Explain the answer. [b]Comment.[/b] Batman and Robin decide their common strategy at the beginning. [img]https://i.imgur.com/PeLBQNt.png[/img]

A lottery ticket has $50$ cells into which one must put a permutation of $1, 2, 3, ... , 50$. Any ticket with at least one cell matching the winning permutation wins a prize. How many tickets are needed to be sure of winning a prize?

Find the greatest $n$ for which there exist $n$ lines in space, passing through a single point, such that any two of them form the same angle.

There are $n$ football teams in [i]Tumbolia[/i]. A championship is to be organised in which each team plays against every other team exactly once. Ever match takes place on a sunday and each team plays at most one match each sunday. Find the least possible positive integer $m_n$ for which it is possible to set up a championship lasting $m_n$ sundays.

Let $m, n \ge 2$ be distinct positive integers. In an infinite grid of unit squares, each square is filled with exactly one real number so that [list] [*]In each $m \times m$ square, the sum of the numbers in the $m^2$ cells is equal. [*]In each $n \times n$ square, the sum of the numbers in the $n^2$ cells is equal. [*]There exist two cells in the grid that do not contain the same number. [/list] Let $S$ be the set of numbers that appear in at least one square on the grid. Find, in terms of $m$ and $n$, the least possible value of $|S|$. [i]Kiran Reddy[/i]

In how many ways rooks can be placed on a $8$ by $8$ chess board such that every row and every column has at least one rook? (Any number of rooks are available,each square can have at most one rook and there is no relation of attacking between them)

[b]p1.[/b] Find any integer solution of the puzzle: $WE+ST+RO+NG=128$ (different letters mean different digits between $1$ and $9$). [b]p2.[/b] A $5\times 6$ rectangle is drawn on the piece of graph paper (see the figure below). The side of each square on the graph paper is $1$ cm long. Cut the rectangle along the sides of the graph squares in two parts whose areas are equal but perimeters are different by $2$ cm. $\begin{tabular}{|l|l|l|l|l|l|} \hline & & & & & \\ \hline & & & & & \\ \hline & & & & & \\ \hline & & & & & \\ \hline \end{tabular}$ [b]p3.[/b] Three runners started simultaneously on a $1$ km long track. Each of them runs the whole distance at a constant speed. Runner $A$ is the fastest. When he runs $400$ meters then the total distance run by runners $B$ and $C$ together is $680$ meters. What is the total combined distance remaining for runners $B$ and $C$ when runner $A$ has $100$ meters left? [b]p4.[/b] There are three people in a room. Each person is either a knight who always tells the truth or a liar who always tells lies. The first person said «We are all liars». The second replied «Only you are a liar». Is the third person a liar or a knight? [b]p5.[/b] A $5\times 8$ rectangle is divided into forty $1\times 1$ square boxes (see the figure below). Choose 24 such boxes and one diagonal in each chosen box so that these diagonals don't have common points. $\begin{tabular}{|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|} \hline & & & & & & & \\ \hline & & & & & & & \\ \hline & & & & & & & \\ \hline & & & & & & & \\ \hline \end{tabular}$ PS. You should use hide for answers. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309]here[/url].

A closed non-self-intersecting polygonal chain is drawn through the centers of some squares on the $8\times 8$ chess board. Every link of the chain connects the centers of adjacent squares either horizontally, vertically or diagonally, where the two squares are adjacent if they share an edge or a corner. For the interior polygon bounded by the chain, prove that the total area of black pieces equals the total area of white pieces. (Author: D. Khramtsov)

Of how many terms does the expansion of a determinant of order $ 2n$ consist if those and only those elements $ a_{ik}$ are non-zero for which $ i\minus{}k$ is divisible by $ n$?

At each node of the checkboard $n\times n$ board, a beetle sat. At midnight, each beetle crawled into the center of a cell. It turned out that the distance between any two beetles sitting in the adjacent (along the side) nodes didn't increase. Prove that at least one beetle crawled into the center of a cell at the vertex of which it sat initially. [i](A. Voidelevich)[/i]

For each positive integer $n$ let the set $A_n$ consist of all numbers $\pm 1 \pm 2 \pm ...\pm n$. For example, $$A_1 = \{-1,1\}, A_2 = \{ -3 ,-1 ,1 ,3 \} , A_3 = \{ -6 ,-4 ,-2 ,0 ,2 ,4 ,6 \}.$$ Find the number of elements in $A_n$ .

Every street in the city of Hamiltonville connects two squares, and every square may be reached by streets from every other. The governor discovered that if he closed all squares of any route not passing any square more than once, every remained square would be reachable from each other. Prove that there exists a circular route passing every square of the city exactly once. [i]Author: S. Berlov[/i]

Prove that the edges of a complete graph with $3^n$ vertices can be partitioned into disjoint cycles of length $3$.

Prove that it is possible to place $2n(2n + 1)$ parallelepipedic (rectangular) pieces of soap of dimensions $1 \times 2 \times (n + 1)$ in a cubic box with edge $2n + 1$ if and only if $n$ is even or $n = 1$. [i]Remark[/i]. It is assumed that the edges of the pieces of soap are parallel to the edges of the box.

Let $A$ be the subset of $\{1, 2, ..., 16\}$ that has $6$ elements. Prove that there exist $2$ subsets of $A$ that are disjoint, and the sum of their elements are the same.

In Mexico, there live $n$ Mexicans, some of whom know each other. They decided to play a game. On the first day, each Mexican wrote a non-negative integer on their forehead. On each following day, they changed their number according to the following rule: On day $i+1$, each Mexican writes on their forehead the smallest non-negative integer that did not appear on the forehead of any of their acquaintances on day $i$. It is known that on some day every Mexican wrote the same number as on the previous day, after which they decided to stop the game. Determine the maximum number of days this game could have lasted. [i]Proposed by Pavle Martinović[/i]

[b]8.1[/b] On the median drawn from the vertex of the triangle to the base, point $A$ is taken. The sum of the distances from $A$ to the sides of the triangle is equal to $s$. Find the distances from $A$ to the sides if the lengths of the sides are equal to $x$ and $y$. [b]8.2[/b] Fraction $0, abc...$ is composed according to the following rule: $a$ and $c$ are arbitrary digits, and each next digit is equal to the remainder of the sum of the previous two digits when divided by $10$. Prove that this fraction is purely periodic. [b]8.3[/b] Two convex polygons with $m$ and $n$ sides are drawn on the plane ($m>n$). What is the greatest possible number of parts, they can break the plane? [b]8.4 [/b]The sum of three integers that are perfect squares is divisible by $9$. Prove that among them, there are two numbers whose difference is divisible by $9$. [b]8.5 / 9.5[/b] Given $k+2$ integers. Prove that among them there are two integers such that either their sum or their difference is divisible by $2k$. [b]8.6[/b] A right angle rotates around its vertex. Find the locus of the midpoints of the segments connecting the intersection points sides of an angle and a given circle. PS. You should use hide for answers.Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c3983460_1963_leningrad_math_olympiad]here[/url].

On sport games there was 1991 participant from which every participant knows at least n other participants(friendship is mutual). Determine the lowest possible n for which we can be sure that there are 6 participants between which any two participants know each other.

There are exactly $120$ Twitter subscribers from National Science High School. Statistics show that each of $10$ given celebrities has at least $85$ followers from National Science High School. Prove that there must be two students such that each of the $10$ celebrities is being followed in Twitter by at least one of these students.