Found problems: 181
Let $n \geq 1$ be an integer. What is the maximum number of disjoint pairs of elements of the set $\{ 1,2,\ldots , n \}$ such that the sums of the different pairs are different integers not exceeding $n$?
In the plane we are given a set $ E$ of 1991 points, and certain pairs of these points are joined with a path. We suppose that for every point of $ E,$ there exist at least 1593 other points of $ E$ to which it is joined by a path. Show that there exist six points of $ E$ every pair of which are joined by a path.
[i]Alternative version:[/i] Is it possible to find a set $ E$ of 1991 points in the plane and paths joining certain pairs of the points in $ E$ such that every point of $ E$ is joined with a path to at least 1592 other points of $ E,$ and in every subset of six points of $ E$ there exist at least two points that are not joined?
Given $ n$ countries with three representatives each, $ m$ committees $ A(1),A(2), \ldots, A(m)$ are called a cycle if
[i](i)[/i] each committee has $ n$ members, one from each country;
[i](ii)[/i] no two committees have the same membership;
[i](iii)[/i] for $ i \equal{} 1, 2, \ldots,m$, committee $ A(i)$ and committee $ A(i \plus{} 1)$ have no member in common, where $ A(m \plus{} 1)$ denotes $ A(1);$
[i](iv)[/i] if $ 1 < |i \minus{} j| < m \minus{} 1,$ then committees $ A(i)$ and $ A(j)$ have at least one member in common.
Is it possible to have a cycle of 1990 committees with 11 countries?
Consider $9$ points in space, no four of which are coplanar. Each pair of points is joined by an edge (that is, a line segment) and each edge is either colored blue or red or left uncolored. Find the smallest value of $\,n\,$ such that whenever exactly $\,n\,$ edges are colored, the set of colored edges necessarily contains a triangle all of whose edges have the same color.
Given a set $M$ of $1985$ distinct positive integers, none of which has a prime divisor greater than $23$, prove that $M$ contains a subset of $4$ elements whose product is the $4$th power of an integer.
Let $n \geq 1$ be an integer. What is the maximum number of disjoint pairs of elements of the set $\{ 1,2,\ldots , n \}$ such that the sums of the different pairs are different integers not exceeding $n$?
Players $A$ and $B$ play a game on a blackboard that initially contains 2020 copies of the number 1 . In every round, player $A$ erases two numbers $x$ and $y$ from the blackboard, and then player $B$ writes one of the numbers $x+y$ and $|x-y|$ on the blackboard. The game terminates as soon as, at the end of some round, one of the following holds:
[list]
[*] $(1)$ one of the numbers on the blackboard is larger than the sum of all other numbers;
[*] $(2)$ there are only zeros on the blackboard.
[/list]
Player $B$ must then give as many cookies to player $A$ as there are numbers on the blackboard. Player $A$ wants to get as many cookies as possible, whereas player $B$ wants to give as few as possible. Determine the number of cookies that $A$ receives if both players play optimally.
Let $ABC$ be an equilateral triangle and $\mathcal{E}$ the set of all points contained in the three segments $AB$, $BC$, and $CA$ (including $A$, $B$, and $C$). Determine whether, for every partition of $\mathcal{E}$ into two disjoint subsets, at least one of the two subsets contains the vertices of a right-angled triangle.
A $10 \times 10$ table consists of $100$ unit cells. A [i]block[/i] is a $2 \times 2$ square consisting of $4$ unit cells of the table. A set $C$ of $n$ blocks covers the table (i.e. each cell of the table is covered by some block of $C$ ) but no $n -1$ blocks of $C$ cover the table. Find the largest possible value of $n$.
An $ (n, k) \minus{}$ tournament is a contest with $ n$ players held in $ k$ rounds such that:
$ (i)$ Each player plays in each round, and every two players meet at most once.
$ (ii)$ If player $ A$ meets player $ B$ in round $ i$, player $ C$ meets player $ D$ in round $ i$, and player $ A$ meets player $ C$ in round $ j$, then player $ B$ meets player $ D$ in round $ j$.
Determine all pairs $ (n, k)$ for which there exists an $ (n, k) \minus{}$ tournament.
[i]Proposed by Carlos di Fiore, Argentina[/i]
An alphabet consists of $n$ letters. What is the maximal length of a word if we know that any two consecutive letters $a,b$ of the word are different and that the word cannot be reduced to a word of the kind $abab$ with $a\neq b$ by removing letters.
Each of eight boxes contains six balls. Each ball has been colored with one of $n$ colors, such that no two balls in the same box are the same color, and no two colors occur together in more than one box. Determine, with justification, the smallest integer $n$ for which this is possible.
Let $n$ be a positive integer. Define a chameleon to be any sequence of $3n$ letters, with exactly $n$ occurrences of each of the letters $a, b,$ and $c$. Define a swap to be the transposition of two adjacent letters in a chameleon. Prove that for any chameleon $X$ , there exists a chameleon $Y$ such that $X$ cannot be changed to $Y$ using fewer than $3n^2/2$ swaps.
Twenty-one girls and twenty-one boys took part in a mathematical competition. It turned out that each contestant solved at most six problems, and for each pair of a girl and a boy, there was at least one problem that was solved by both the girl and the boy. Show that there is a problem that was solved by at least three girls and at least three boys.
Let $n$ be a positive integer. Define a chameleon to be any sequence of $3n$ letters, with exactly $n$ occurrences of each of the letters $a, b,$ and $c$. Define a swap to be the transposition of two adjacent letters in a chameleon. Prove that for any chameleon $X$ , there exists a chameleon $Y$ such that $X$ cannot be changed to $Y$ using fewer than $3n^2/2$ swaps.
For each finite set $ U$ of nonzero vectors in the plane we define $ l(U)$ to be the length of the vector that is the sum of all vectors in $ U.$ Given a finite set $ V$ of nonzero vectors in the plane, a subset $ B$ of $ V$ is said to be maximal if $ l(B)$ is greater than or equal to $ l(A)$ for each nonempty subset $ A$ of $ V.$
(a) Construct sets of 4 and 5 vectors that have 8 and 10 maximal subsets respectively.
(b) Show that, for any set $ V$ consisting of $ n \geq 1$ vectors the number of maximal subsets is less than or equal to $ 2n.$
Let $n \geq 2$ be an integer. Find the maximal cardinality of a set $M$ of pairs $(j, k)$ of integers, $1 \leq j < k \leq n$, with the following property: If $(j, k) \in M$, then $(k,m) \not \in M$ for any $m.$
The set $M = \{1, 2, . . . , 2n\}$ is partitioned into $k$ nonintersecting subsets $M_1,M_2, \dots, M_k,$ where $n \ge k^3 + k.$ Prove that there exist even numbers $2j_1, 2j_2, \dots, 2j_{k+1}$ in $M$ that are in one and the same subset $M_i$ $(1 \le i \le k)$ such that the numbers $2j_1 - 1, 2j_2 - 1, \dots, 2j_{k+1} - 1$ are also in one and the same subset $M_j (1 \le j \le k).$
Given a finite set $X$, let $f$ be a rule such that $f$ maps every [i]even-element-subset[/i] $E$ of $X$ (i.e. $E \subseteq X$, $|E|$ is even) into a real number $f(E)$. Suppose that $f$ satisfies the following conditions:
(I) there exists an [i]even-element-subset[/i] $D$ of $X$ such that $f(D)>1990$;
(II) for any two disjoint [i]even-element-subsets [/i]$A,B$ of $X$, equation $f(A\cup B)=f(A)+f(B)-1990$ holds.
Prove that there exist two subsets $P,Q$ of $X$ satisfying:
(1) $P\cap Q=\emptyset$, $P\cup Q=X$;
(2) for any [i]non-even-element-subset [/i]$S$ of $P$ (i.e. $S\subseteq P$, $|S|$ is odd), we have $f(S)>1990$;
(3) for any [i]even-element-subset[/i] $T$ of $Q$, we have $f(T)\le 1990$.
Let $ X$ be a set of 10,000 integers, none of them is divisible by 47. Prove that there exists a 2007-element subset $ Y$ of $ X$ such that $ a \minus{} b \plus{} c \minus{} d \plus{} e$ is not divisible by 47 for any $ a,b,c,d,e \in Y.$
[i]Author: Gerhard Wöginger, Netherlands[/i]
Let $ABC$ be an equilateral triangle and $\mathcal{E}$ the set of all points contained in the three segments $AB$, $BC$, and $CA$ (including $A$, $B$, and $C$). Determine whether, for every partition of $\mathcal{E}$ into two disjoint subsets, at least one of the two subsets contains the vertices of a right-angled triangle.
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.
Find the least natural number $ n$ such that, if the set $ \{1,2, \ldots, n\}$ is arbitrarily divided into two non-intersecting subsets, then one of the subsets contains 3 distinct numbers such that the product of two of them equals the third.
At least how many non-zero real numbers do we have to select such that every one of them can be written as a sum of $2019$ other selected numbers and
a) the selected numbers are not necessarily different?
b) the selected numbers are pairwise different?
Let $A = (a_1, a_2, \ldots, a_{2001})$ be a sequence of positive integers. Let $m$ be the number of 3-element subsequences $(a_i,a_j,a_k)$ with $1 \leq i < j < k \leq 2001$, such that $a_j = a_i + 1$ and $a_k = a_j + 1$. Considering all such sequences $A$, find the greatest value of $m$.