$9$ horizontal and $9$ vertical lines are drawn through a square. Prove that it is possible to select $20$ rectangles so that the sides of each rectangle is a segment of one of the given lines (including the sides of the square), and for any two of the $20$ rectangles, it is possible to cover one of them with the other (rotations are allowed).

Let $B$ be a set of more than $\tfrac{2^{n+1}}{n}$ distinct points with coordinates of the form $(\pm 1, \pm 1, \cdots, \pm 1)$ in $n$-dimensional space with $n \ge 3$. Show that there are three distinct points in $B$ which are the vertices of an equilateral triangle.

A rectangle is divided into $n^2$ smaller rectangle by $n - 1$ horizontal lines and $n - 1$ vertical lines. Between those rectangles there are exactly $5660$ which are not congruent. For what minimum value of $n$ is this possible?

A $\pm 1$-[i]sequence[/i] is a sequence of $2022$ numbers $a_1, \ldots, a_{2022},$ each equal to either $+1$ or $-1$. Determine the largest $C$ so that, for any $\pm 1$-sequence, there exists an integer $k$ and indices $1 \le t_1 < \ldots < t_k \le 2022$ so that $t_{i+1} - t_i \le 2$ for all $i$, and $$\left| \sum_{i = 1}^{k} a_{t_i} \right| \ge C.$$

In a school there are totally $n > 2$ classes and not all of them have the same numbers of students. It is given that each class has one head student. The students in each class wear hats of the same color and different classes have different hat colors. One day all the students of the school stand in a circle facing toward the center, in an arbitrary order, to play a game. Every minute, each student put his hat on the person standing next to him on the right. Show that at some moment, there are $2$ head students wearing hats of the same color.

In a badminton competition, $16$ players participate, of which $10$ are professionals and $6$ are amateurs. In the first phase, eight games are drawn. Among the eight winners of these games, four games are drawn. The four winners qualify for the semi-finals of the competition. Assuming that, whenever a professional player and an amateur play each other, the professional wins the game, what is the probability that an amateur player will reach the semi-finals of the competition?

A necklace contains 2024 pearls, each one of them having one of the following colours: black, green and yellow. Each moment, we will switch each one of all pearls simultaneously to a new one following the following rules: i) If its two neighbours are of the same colour, then it'll be switched to that same colour. ii) If its two neighbours are of different colours, then it'll be switched to the third colour. a) Does there exist any necklace that can be transformed into a necklace that consists of only yellow pearls if initially half of the pearls are black and the other half is green? b) Does there exist a necklace that can be transformed into a necklace that consists of only yellow pearls if initially 998 pearls are black and the rest 1026 pearls are green?

Alex and Bob play a game 2015 x 2015 checkered board by the following rules.Initially the board is empty: the players move in turn, Alex moves first. By a move, a player puts either red or blue token into any unoccopied square. If after a player's move there appears a row of three consecutive tokens of the same color( this row may be vertical,horizontal, or dioganal), then this player wins. If all the cells are occupied by tokens, but no such row appears, then a draw is declared.Determine whether Alex, Bob, or none of them has winning strategy.

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.

Prove that, if every three consecutive vertices of a convex $n{}$-gon, $n\geqslant 4$, span a triangle of area at least 1, then the area of the $n{}$-gon is (strictly) greater than $(n\log_2 n)/4-1/2.$ [i]Radu Bumbăcea & Călin Popescu[/i]

Let $P_1,P_2,\ldots ,P_n$, be infinite arithmetic progressions of positive integers, of differences $d_1,d_2,\ldots ,d_n$, respectively. Prove that if every positive integer appears in at least one of the $n$ progressions then one of the differences $d_i$ divides the least common multiple of the remaining $n-1$ differences. Note: $P_i=\left \{ a_i,a_i+d_i,a_i+2d_i,a_i+3d_i,a_i+4d_i,\cdots \right \}$ with $ a_i$ and $d_i$ positive integers.

Prove that the number $ (\underbrace{9999 \dots 99}_{2005}) ^{2009}$ can be obtained by erasing some digits of $ (\underbrace{9999 \dots 99}_{2008}) ^{2009}$ (both in decimal representation). [i]Yudi Satria, Jakarta[/i]

Let $n \ge 2$ be an integer. Alex writes the numbers $1, 2, ..., n$ in some order on a circle such that any two neighbours are coprime. Then, for any two numbers that are not comprime, Alex draws a line segment between them. For each such segment $s$ we denote by $d_s$ the difference of the numbers written in its extremities and by $p_s$ the number of all other drawn segments which intersect $s$ in its interior. Find the greatest $n$ for which Alex can write the numbers on the circle such that $p_s \le |d_s|$, for each drawn segment $s$.

How many ways are there to arrange the five letters P,U,M,A,C, such that the two vowels are not adjacent?

An $m \times n$ rectangle is tiled with $\frac{mn}{2}$ $1 \times 2$ dominoes. The tiling is such that whenever the rectangle is partitioned into two smaller rectangles, there exists a domino that is part of the interior of both rectangles. Given $mn > 2$, what is the minimum possible value of $mn$? For instance, the following tiling of a $4 \times 3$ rectangle doesn’t work because we can partition along the line shown, but that doesn’t necessarily mean other $4 \times 3$ tilings don’t work. [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/d/3/cb1fed407e45463950542b3cc64185892afdc5.png[/img]

The Imomi archipelago consists of $n\geq 2$ islands. Between each pair of distinct islands is a unique ferry line that runs in both directions, and each ferry line is operated by one of $k$ companies. It is known that if any one of the $k$ companies closes all its ferry lines, then it becomes impossible for a traveller, no matter where the traveller starts at, to visit all the islands exactly once (in particular, not returning to the island the traveller started at). Determine the maximal possible value of $k$ in terms of $n$. [i]Anton Trygub, Ukraine[/i]

In a group of $n \ge 4$ persons, every three who know each other have a common signal. Assume that these signals are not repeated and that there are $m \ge 1$ signals in total. For any set of four persons in which there are three having a common signal, the fourth person has a common signal with at most one of them. Show that there three persons who have a common signal, such that the number of persons having no signal with anyone of them does not exceed $\left[n+3 -\frac{18m}{n}\right]$

Let us have an infinite grid of unit squares. We write in every unit square a real number, such that the absolute value of the sum of the numbers from any $n*n$ square is less or equal than $1$. Prove that the absolute value of the sum of the numbers from any $m*n$ rectangular is less or equal than $4$.

All sides and diagonals of a $25$-gon are drawn either red or white. Show that at least $500$ triangles, having all three sides are in same color and having all three vertices from the vertices of the $25$-gon, can be found.

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]

[b]p1.[/b] Darth Vader urgently needed a new Death Star battle station. He sent requests to four planets asking how much time they would need to build it. The Mandalorians answered that they can build it in one year, the Sorganians in one and a half year, the Nevarroins in two years, and the Klatoonians in three years. To expedite the work Darth Vader decided to hire all of them to work together. The Rebels need to know when the Death Star is operational. Can you help the Rebels and find the number of days needed if all four planets work together? We assume that one year $= 365$ days. [b]p2.[/b] Solve the inequality: $\left( \sin \frac{\pi}{12} \right)^{\sqrt{1-x}} > \left( \sin \frac{\pi}{12} \right)^x$ [b]p3.[/b] Solve the equation: $\sqrt{x^2 + 4x + 4} = x^2 + 3x - 6$ [b]p4.[/b] Solve the system of inequalities on $[0, 2\pi]$: $$\sin (2x) \ge \sin (x)$$ $$\cos (2x) \le \cos (x)$$ [b]p5.[/b] The planet Naboo is under attack by the imperial forces. Three rebellian camps are located at the vertices of a triangle. The roads connecting the camps are along the sides of the triangle. The length of the first road is less than or equal to $20$ miles, the length of the second road is less than or equal to $30$ miles, and the length of the third road is less than or equal to $45$ miles. The Rebels have to cover the area of this triangle by a defensive field. What is the maximal area that they may need to cover? [b]p6.[/b] The Lake Country on the planet Naboo has the shape of a square. There are nine roads in the country. Each of the roads is a straight line that divides the country into two trapezoidal parts such that the ratio of the areas of these parts is $2:5$. Prove that at least three of these roads intersect at one point. PS. You should use hide for answers.

Consider the set $A=\{1,2,...,49\}$. We partitionate $A$ into three subsets. Prove that there exist a set from these subsets containing three distincts elements $a,b,c$ such that $a+b=c$

In the future city Baltic Way there are sixteen hospitals. Every night exactly four of them must be on duty for emergencies. Is it possible to arrange the schedule in such a way that after twenty nights every pair of hospitals have been on common duty exactly once?

We say a finite set $S$ of points with $|S|\ge3$ is [i]good[/i] if for any three distinct elements of $S$, they are non-collinear and the orthocenter of them is also in $S$. Find all good sets.

A meeting is held at a round table. It is known that 7 women have a woman on their right side, and 12 women have a man on their right side. It is also known that 75% of the men have a woman on their right side. How many people are sitting at the round table?