Given a $24 \times 24$ square grid, initially all its unit squares are coloured white. A move consists of choosing a row, or a column, and changing the colours of all its unit squares, from white to black, and from black to white. Is it possible that after finitely many moves, the square grid contains exactly $574$ black unit squares?

In a word of more than $10$ letters, any two consecutive letters are different. Prove that one can change places of two consecutive letters so that the resulting word is not [i]periodic[/i], that is, cannot be divided into equal subwords.

Two players play the following game on a square of $N \times N$ squares. They color one square in turn so that no two colored squares are on the same diagonal. A player who cannot make a move loses. For what values of $N$ does the first player have a winning strategy?

An arrow is assigned to each edge of a polyhedron such that for each vertex, there is an arrow pointing towards that vertex and an arrow pointing away from that vertex. Prove that there exist at least two faces such that the arrows on their boundaries form a cycle.

We are given $k$ colors and we have to assign a single color to every vertex. An edge is [u][b]satisfied[/b][/u] if the vertices on that edge, are of different colors. [list] [*]Prove that you can always find an algorithm which assigns colors to vertices so that at least $\frac{k - 1}{k}|E|$ edges are satisfied where \(|E|\) is the cardinality of the edges in the graph.[/*] [*]Prove that there is a poly time deterministic algorithm for this [/*] [/list]

Each real number greater than 1 is colored red or blue with both colors being used. Prove that there exist real numbers $a$ and $b$ such that the numbers $a+\frac1b$ and $b+\frac1a$ are different colors.

We have $p$ players participating in a tournament, each player playing against every other player exactly once. A point is scored for each victory, and there are no draws. A sequence of nonnegative integers $s_1 \le s_2 \le s_3 \le\cdots\le s_p$ is given. Show that it is possible for this sequence to be a set of final scores of the players in the tournament if and only if \[(i)\displaystyle\sum_{i=1}^{p} s_i =\frac{1}{2}p(p-1)\] \[\text{and}\] \[(ii)\text{ for all }k < p,\displaystyle\sum_{i=1}^{k} s_i \ge \frac{1}{2} k(k - 1).\]

In Mexico City, in order to limit traffic flow, for each private car is given one day a week on which it cannot go on the city streets. A wealthy family of 10 bribed the police, and for each car they are given 2 days, one of which the police chooses as a ''no travel'' day. What is the smallest number of cars a family needs to buy so that each family member can drive independently every day, if the approval of “no travel” days for cars occurs sequentially? [hide=original wording]В городе Мехико в целях ограничения транспортного потока для каждой частной автомашины устанавливаются один деньв неделю, в который она не может выезжать на улицы города. Состоятельная семья из 10 человек подкупила полицию, и для каждой машины они называют 2 дня, один из которых полиция выбирает в качестве ''невыездного'' дня. Какое наименьшее количество машин нужно купить семье, чтобы каждый день каждый член семьи мог самостоятельно ездить, если утверждение ''невыездных'' дней для автомобилей идет последовательно?[/hide]

Prove that for any positive integer $n$, the least common multiple of the numbers $1,2,\ldots,n$ and the least common multiple of the numbers: \[\binom{n}{1},\binom{n}{2},\ldots,\binom{n}{n}\] are equal if and only if $n+1$ is a prime number. [i]Laurentiu Panaitopol[/i]

$60$ points lie on the plane, such that no three points are collinear. Prove that one can divide the points into $20$ groups, with $3$ points in each group, such that the triangles ( $20$ in total) consist of three points in a group have a non-empty intersection.

[b]p1.[/b] An animal farm has geese and pigs with a total of $30$ heads and $84$ legs. Find the number of pigs and geese on this farm. [b]p2.[/b] What is the maximum number of $1 \times 1$ squares of a $7 \times 7$ board that can be colored black in such a way that the black squares don’t touch each other even at their corners? Show your answer on the figure below and explain why it is not possible to get more black squares satisfying the given conditions. [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/d/5/2a0528428f4a5811565b94061486699df0577c.png[/img] [b]p3.[/b] Decide whether it is possible to divide a regular hexagon into three equal not necessarily regular hexagons? A regular hexagon is a hexagon with equal sides and equal angles. [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/3/7/5d941b599a90e13a2e8ada635e1f1f3f234703.png[/img] [b]p4.[/b] A rectangle is subdivided into a number of smaller rectangles. One observes that perimeters of all smaller rectangles are whole numbers. Is it possible that the perimeter of the original rectangle is not a whole number? [b]p5.[/b] Place parentheses on the left hand side of the following equality to make it correct. $$ 4 \times 12 + 18 : 6 + 3 = 50$$ [b]p6.[/b] Is it possible to cut a $16\times 9$ rectangle into two equal parts which can be assembled into a square? PS. You should use hide for answers. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309]here[/url].

Alice and Bob are playing "factoring game." On the paper, $270000(=2^43^35^4)$ is written and each person picks one number from the paper(call it $N$) and erase $N$ and writes integer $X,Y$ such that $N=XY$ and $\text{gcd}(X,Y)\ne1.$ Alice goes first and the person who can no longer make this factoring loses. If two people use optimal strategy, prove that Alice always win.

In each square of a garden shaped like a $2022 \times 2022$ board, there is initially a tree of height $0$. A gardener and a lumberjack alternate turns playing the following game, with the gardener taking the first turn: [list] [*] The gardener chooses a square in the garden. Each tree on that square and all the surrounding squares (of which there are at most eight) then becomes one unit taller. [*] The lumberjack then chooses four different squares on the board. Each tree of positive height on those squares then becomes one unit shorter. [/list] We say that a tree is [i]majestic[/i] if its height is at least $10^6$. Determine the largest $K$ such that the gardener can ensure there are eventually $K$ majestic trees on the board, no matter how the lumberjack plays.

A $6 \times 6$ board is given such that each unit square is either red or green. It is known that there are no $4$ adjacent unit squares of the same color in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line. A $2 \times 2$ subsquare of the board is [i]chesslike[/i] if it has one red and one green diagonal. Find the maximal possible number of chesslike squares on the board. [i]Proposed by Nikola Velov[/i]

Find all pairs of positive integers (m, n) for which it is possible to paint each unit square of an m*n chessboard either black or white in such way that, for any unit square of the board, the number of unit squares which are painted the same color as that square and which have at least one common vertex with it (including the square itself) is even.

A magician has $300$ cards with numbers from $1$ to $300$ written on them, each number on exactly one card. The magician then lays these cards on a $3 \times 100$ rectangle in the following way - one card in each unit square so that the number cannot be seen and cards with consecutive numbers are in neighbouring squares. Afterwards, the magician turns over $k$ cards of his choice. What is the smallest value of $k$ for which it can happen that the opened cards definitely determine the exact positions of all other cards?

$99$ different points $P_1, P_2, ..., P_{99}$ are marked on circle $O$. For each $P_i$, define $n_i$ as the number of marked points you encounter starting from $P_i$ to its antipode, moving clockwise. Prove the following inequality. $$n_1+n_2+\cdots+n_{99} \leq \frac{99\cdot 98}{2}+49=4900$$

Alice and Bob are playing a game on a graph with $n\ge3$ vertices. At each moment, Alice needs to choose two vertices so that the graph is connected even if one of them (along with the edges incident to it) is removed. Each turn, Bob removes one edge in the graph, and upon the removal, Alice needs to re-select the two vertices if necessary. However, Bob has to guarantee that after each removal, any two vertices in the graph are still connected via at most $k$ intermediate vertices. Here $0\le k\le n-2$ is some given integer. Suppose that Bob always knows which two vertices Alice chooses, and that initially, the graph is a complete graph. Alice's objective is to change her choice of the two vertices as few times as possible, and Bob's objective is to make Alive re-select as many times as possible. If both Alice and Bob are sufficiently smart, how many times will Alice change her choice of the two vertices? (usjl)

How many $3$-digit numbers contain the digit $7$ exactly once?

A table tennis tournament has $101$ contestants, where each pair of contestants will play each other exactly once. In each match, the player who gets $11$ points first is the winner, and the other the loser. At the end of the tournament, it turns out that there exist matches with scores $11$ to $0$ and $11$ to $10$. Show that there exists 3 contestants $A,B,C$ such that the score of the losers in the matches between $A,B$ and $A,C$ are equal, but different from the score of the loser in the match between $B,C$.

A class contains $80$ boys and $80$ girls. On each weekday (Monday to Friday) of the week before final exams, the teacher has $16$ books for the students to borrow, where a book can only be borrowed for one day at a time, and each student can only borrow once during the entire week. Show that there are two days and two books such that one of the following two statements is true: (i) Both books were not borrowed on both days (ii) Both books were borrowed on both days, and the four students who borrowed the books on these days are either all boys or all girls.

We are given $2001$ balloons and a positive integer $k$. Each balloon has been blown up to a certain size (not necessarily the same for each balloon). In each step it is allowed to choose at most $k$ balloons and equalize their sizes to their arithmetic mean. Determine the smallest value of $k$ such that, whatever the initial sizes are, it is possible to make all the balloons have equal size after a finite number of steps.

Let $n$ be a positive integer. Two players $A$ and $B$ play a game in which they take turns choosing positive integers $k \le n$. The rules of the game are: (i) A player cannot choose a number that has been chosen by either player on any previous turn. (ii) A player cannot choose a number consecutive to any of those the player has already chosen on any previous turn. (iii) The game is a draw if all numbers have been chosen; otherwise the player who cannot choose a number anymore loses the game. The player $A$ takes the first turn. Determine the outcome of the game, assuming that both players use optimal strategies. [i]Proposed by Finland[/i]

Let $m, n$ be positive integers. Starting with all positive integers written in a line, we can form a list of numbers in two ways: $(1)$ Erasing every $m$-th and then, in the obtained list, erasing every $n$-th number; $(2)$ Erasing every $n$-th number and then, in the obtained list, erasing every $m$-th number. A pair $(m,n)$ is called [i]good[/i] if, whenever some positive integer $k$ occurs in both these lists, then it occurs in both lists on the same position. (a) Show that the pair $(2, n)$ is good for any $n\in \mathbb{N}$. (b) Is there a good pair $(m, n)$ with $2<m<n$?

The space is filled in the usual way with unit cubes. (Each cube is adjacent to $6$ others that have a common face with it.) On three edges of one of the cubes emerging from one vertex, points are marked at a distance of $1/19$, $1/9$ and $1/7$ from it, respectively. A plane is drawn through these points. Let's consider the many different polygons formed when this plane intersects with the cubes filling the space. How many different (unequal) polygons are there in this set?