In a $10\times 10$ square board, half of the squares are coloured white and half black. One side common to two squares on the board side is called a [i]border[/i] if the two squares have different colours. Determine the minimum and maximum possible number of borders that can be on the board.

Suppose you have ten pairs of red socks, ten pairs of blue socks, and ten pairs of green socks in your drawer. You need to go to a party soon, but the power is currently off in your room. It is completely dark, so you cannot see any colors and unfortunately the socks are identically shaped. What is the minimum number of socks you need to take from the drawer in order to guarantee that you have at least one pair of socks whose colors match?

[b]p1.[/b] In the correct identity $(x^2 - 1)(x + ...) = (x + 3)(x- 1)(x +...)$ two numbers were replaced with dots. What were these numbers? [b]p2.[/b] A merchant is carrying money from point A to point B. There are robbers on the roads who rob travelers: on one road the robbers take $10\%$ of the amount currently available, on the other - $20\%$, etc. . How should the merchant travel to bring as much of the money as possible to B? What part of the original amount will he bring to B? [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/f/5/ab62ce8fce3d482bc52b89463c953f4271b45e.png[/img] [b]p3.[/b] Find the angle between the hour and minute hands at $7$ hours $38$ minutes. [b]p4.[/b] The lottery game is played as follows. A random number from $1$ to $1000$ is selected. If it is divisible by $2$, they pay a ruble, if it is divisible by $10$ - two rubles, by $12$ - four rubles, by $20$ - eight, if it is divisible by several of these numbers, then they pay the sum. How much can you win (at one time) in such a game? List all options. [b]p5.[/b]The sum of the digits of a positive integer $x$ is equal to $n$. Prove that between $x$ and $10x$ you can find an integer whose sum of digits is $ n + 5$. [b]p6.[/b] $9$ people took part in the campaign, which lasted $12$ days. There were $3$ people on duty every day. At the same time, the duty officers quarreled with each other and no two of them wanted to be on duty together ever again. Nevertheless, the participants of the campaign claim that for all $12$ days they were able to appoint three people on duty, taking into account this requirement. Could this be so? PS. You should use hide for answers. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c2416727_soros_olympiad_in_mathematics]here.[/url]

A fair coin is flipped every second and the results are recorded with $1$ meaning heads and $0$ meaning tails. What is the probability that the sequence $10101$ occurs before the first occurance of the sequence $010101$?

Ten localities are served by two international airlines such that there exists a direct service (without stops) between any two of these localities and all airline schedules offer round-trip service between the cities they serve. Prove that at least one of the airlines can offer two disjoint round trips each containing an odd number of landings.

Sam and Jonathan play a game where they take turns flipping a weighted coin, and the game ends when one of them wins. The coin has a $\frac89$ chance of landing heads and a $\frac19$ chance of landing tails. Sam wins when he flips heads, and Jonathan wins when he flips tails. Find the probability that Samwins, given that he takes the first turn. [i]Proposed by Samuel Tsui[/i]

A point is chosen inside a regular $k$-gon in such a way that its orthogonal projections on to the sides all meet the respective sides at interior points. These points divide the sides into $2k$ segments. Let these segments be enumerated consecutively by the numbers $1,2, 3, ... ,2k$. Prove that the sum of the lengths of the segments having even numbers equals the sum of the segments having odd numbers. (A Andjans, Riga)

Consider the set $A = \{1, 2, 3, ..., 2008\}$. We say that a set is of [i]type[/i] $r, r \in \{0, 1, 2\}$, if that set is a nonempty subset of $A$ and the sum of its elements gives the remainder $r$ when divided by $3$. Denote by $X_r, r \in \{0, 1, 2\}$ the class of sets of type $r$. Determine which of the classes $X_r, r \in \{0, 1, 2\}$, is the largest.

In a hidden friend, suppose no one takes oneself. We say that the hidden friend has "marmalade" if there are two people $A$ and $ B$ such that A took $B$ and $ B $ took $A$. For each positive integer n, let $f (n)$ be the number of hidden friends with n people where there is no “marmalade”, i.e. $f (n)$ is equal to the number of permutations $\sigma$ of {$1, 2,. . . , n$} such that: *$\sigma (i) \neq i$ for all $i=1,2,...,n$ * there are no $ 1 \leq i <j \leq n $ such that $ \sigma (i) = j$ and $\sigma (j) = i. $ Determine the limit $\lim_{n \to + \infty} \frac{f(n)}{n!}$

In each square of a $4 \times 4$ table a number $0$ or $1$ is written, such that the product of every two neighboring squares is $0$ (neighboring by side). $a)$ In how many ways is this possible to do if the middle $2\times 2$ is filled with $4$ zeros? $b)$ In general, in how many ways is this possible to do (regardless of the middle $2 \times 2$)?

An infinite (in both directions) sequence of rooms is situated on one side of an infinite hallway. The rooms are numbered by consecutive integers and each contains a grand piano. A finite number of pianists live in these rooms. (There may be more than one of them in some of the rooms.) Every day some two pianists living in adjacent rooms (the Arth and ($k +1$)st) decide that they interfere with each other’s practice, and they move to the ($k - 1$)st and ($k + 2$)nd rooms, respectively. Prove that these moves will cease after a finite number of days. (VG Ilichev)

Find all ordered pairs of positive integers $(m,n)$ for which there exists a set $C=\{c_1,\ldots,c_k\}$ ($k\ge1$) of colors and an assignment of colors to each of the $mn$ unit squares of a $m\times n$ grid such that for every color $c_i\in C$ and unit square $S$ of color $c_i$, exactly two direct (non-diagonal) neighbors of $S$ have color $c_i$. [i]David Yang.[/i]

We are given a finite number of functions of the form $y = c2^{-|x-d|}$. In each case $c$ and $d$ are parameters with $c > 0$. The function $f(x)$ is defined on the interval $[a, b]$ as follows: For each $x$ in $[a, b]$, $f(x)$ is the maximum value taken by any of the given functions $y$ (defined above) at that point $x$. It is known that $f(a) = f(b)$. Prove that the total length of the intervals in which the function $f$ is increasing is equal to the total length of the intervals in which it is decreasing (that is, both are equal to $(b- a)/2$ ). (NB Vasiliev)

Let $n$ be a positive integer. We have $n$ boxes where each box contains a non-negative number of pebbles. In each move we are allowed to take two pebbles from a box we choose, throw away one of the pebbles and put the other pebble in another box we choose. An initial configuration of pebbles is called [i]solvable[/i] if it is possible to reach a configuration with no empty box, in a finite (possibly zero) number of moves. Determine all initial configurations of pebbles which are not solvable, but become solvable when an additional pebble is added to a box, no matter which box is chosen.

In how many ways can the integers from $1$ to $2006$ be divided into three non-empty disjoint sets so that none of these sets contains a pair of consecutive integers?

The game of Greed starts with an initial configuration of one or more piles of stones. Player $1$ and Player $2$ take turns to remove stones, beginning with Player $1$. At each turn, a player has two choices: • take one stone from any one of the piles (a simple move); • take one stone from each of the remaining piles (a greedy move). The player who takes the last stone wins. Consider the following two initial configurations: (a) There are $2018$ piles, with either $20$ or $18$ stones in each pile. (b) There are four piles, with $17, 18, 19$, and $20$ stones, respectively. In each case, find an appropriate strategy that guarantees victory to one of the players.

On an east-west shipping lane are ten ships sailing individually. The first five from the west are sailing eastwards while the other five ships are sailing westwards. They sail at the same constant speed at all times. Whenever two ships meet, each turns around and sails in the opposite direction. When all ships have returned to port, how many meetings of two ships have taken place?

Given is a grid with $2$ rows and $120$ columns, such that each cell has a number from the set $1, 2, ..., 120$. It is known that in each column, the upper number in it is smaller than the lower number, and in each row, the numbers are in non-strict increasing order from left to right. Prove that the number of these tables is multiple of $239$.

In the Cartesian plane, let $C$ be a unit circle with center at origin $O$. For any point $Q$ in the plane distinct from $O$, define $Q'$ to be the intersection of the ray $OQ$ and the circle $C$. Prove that for any $P\in C$ and any $k\in\mathbb{N}$ there exists a lattice point $Q(x,y)$ with $|x|=k$ or $|y|=k$ such that $PQ'<\frac{1}{2k}$.

Alice and Bob are in a hardware store. The store sells coloured sleeves that fit over keys to distinguish them. The following conversation takes place: [color=#0000FF]Alice:[/color] Are you going to cover your keys? [color=#FF0000]Bob:[/color] I would like to, but there are only $7$ colours and I have $8$ keys. [color=#0000FF]Alice:[/color] Yes, but you could always distinguish a key by noticing that the red key next to the green key was different from the red key next to the blue key. [color=#FF0000]Bob:[/color] You must be careful what you mean by "[i]next to[/i]" or "[i]three keys over from[/i]" since you can turn the key ring over and the keys are arranged in a circle. [color=#0000FF]Alice:[/color] Even so, you don't need $8$ colours. [b]Problem:[/b] What is the smallest number of colours needed to distinguish $n$ keys if all the keys are to be covered.

A dragon gave a captured knight $100$ coins. Half of them are magical, but only dragon knows which are. Each day, the knight should divide the coins into two piles (not necessarily equal in size). The day when either magic coins or usual coins are spread equally between the piles, the dragon set the knight free. Can the knight guarantee himself a freedom in at most (a) $50$ days? (b) $25$ days?

Let $S$ be a nonempty finite set, and $\mathcal {F}$ be a collection of subsets of $S$ such that the following conditions are met: (i) $\mathcal {F}$ $\setminus$ {$S$} $\neq$ $\emptyset$ ; (ii) if $F_1, F_2 \in \mathcal {F}$, then $F_1 \cap F_2 \in \mathcal {F}$ and $F_1 \cup F_2 \in \mathcal {F}$. Prove that there exists $a \in S$ which belongs to at most half of the elements of $\mathcal {F}$.

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 $x$. )

Some squares of the infinite sheet of cross-lined paper are red. Each $2\times 3$ rectangle (of $6$ squares) contains exactly two red squares. How many red squares can be in the $9\times 11$ rectangle of $99$ squares?

South Adrican Magical Flights (SAMF) operates flights between South Adrican airports. If there is a flight from airport $A$ to airpost $B$, there will be also a flight from $B$ to $A$. The SAMF headquarters are located in Kimberley. Every airport that is served by Kimberley can be reached from Kimberley in precisely one way. This way of reaching Kimberley may involve stopping at other airports on the way. (For example, it may happen that you can get to Kimberley by flying from Durban to Bloemfontein and then from to Bloemfontein to Kimberley. In that case there is no other way to get from Durban to Kimberley. For example, there would be no direct Hight from Durban to Kimberley.) An airport (other than Kimberley) is called terminal if there are flights to (and from) precisely one other airport. Suppose that there are $t$ terminal airports. Due to budget cuts, SAMF decides to close down $k$ of the airports. It should still be possible to reach each of the remaining airports from Kimberley. Let $C$ be the number of choices for the $k$ destinations that are discontinued. Prove that $$\frac{t!}{k!(t-k)} \le C \le \frac{(t+k-1)!}{k!(t-1)!} .$$