In the plane, four points are marked. It is known that these points are the centers of four circles, three of which are pairwise externally tangent, and all these three are internally tangent to the fourth one. It turns out, however, that it is impossible to determine which of the marked points is the center of the fourth (the largest) circle. Prove that these four points are the vertices of a rectangle.

Four identical squares and one rectangle are placed together to form one large square as shown. The length of the rectangle is how many times as large as its width? [asy]unitsize(8mm); defaultpen(linewidth(.8pt)); draw(scale(4)*unitsquare); draw((0,3)--(4,3)); draw((1,3)--(1,4)); draw((2,3)--(2,4)); draw((3,3)--(3,4));[/asy]$ \textbf{(A)}\ \frac {5}{4} \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ \frac {4}{3} \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ \frac {3}{2} \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 2 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 3$

A $9\times 7$ rectangle is tiled with tiles of the two types: L-shaped tiles composed by three unit squares (can be rotated repeatedly with $90^\circ$) and square tiles composed by four unit squares. Let $n\ge 0$ be the number of the $2 \times 2 $ tiles which can be used in such a tiling. Find all the values of $n$.

Cube $ABCDEFGH$, labeled as shown below, has edge length $1$ and is cut by a plane passing through vertex $D$ and the midpoints $M$ and $N$ of $\overline{AB}$ and $\overline{CG}$ respectively. The plane divides the cube into two solids. The volume of the larger of the two solids can be written in the form $\frac{p}{q}$, where $p$ and $q$ are relatively prime positive integers. Find $p+q$. [asy] draw((0,0)--(10,0)--(10,10)--(0,10)--cycle); draw((0,10)--(4,13)--(14,13)--(10,10)); draw((10,0)--(14,3)--(14,13)); draw((0,0)--(4,3)--(4,13), dashed); draw((4,3)--(14,3), dashed); dot((0,0)); dot((0,10)); dot((10,10)); dot((10,0)); dot((4,3)); dot((14,3)); dot((14,13)); dot((4,13)); dot((14,8)); dot((5,0)); label("A", (0,0), SW); label("B", (10,0), S); label("C", (14,3), E); label("D", (4,3), NW); label("E", (0,10), W); label("F", (10,10), SE); label("G", (14,13), E); label("H", (4,13), NW); label("M", (5,0), S); label("N", (14,8), E); [/asy]

Some 46 squares are randomly chosen from a $9 \times 9$ chess board and colored in [color=red]red[/color]. Show that there exists a $2\times 2$ block of 4 squares of which at least three are colored in [color=red]red[/color].

A rectangle formed by the lines of checkered paper is divided into figures of three kinds: isosceles right triangles (1) with base of two units, squares (2) with unit side, and parallelograms (3) formed by two sides and two diagonals of unit squares (figures may be oriented in any way). Prove that the number of figures of the third kind is even. [img]http://up.iranblog.com/Files7/dda310bab8b6455f90ce.jpg[/img]

The points $P$ and $Q$ are the midpoints of the edges $AE$ and $CG$ on the cube $ABCD.EFGH$ respectively. If the length of the cube edges is $1$ unit, determine the area of the quadrilateral $DPFQ$ .

Let $R$ be the rectangle in the coordinate plane with corners $(0, 0)$, $(20, 0)$, $(20, 22)$, and $(0, 22)$, and partition $R$ into a $20\times 22$ grid of unit squares. For a given line in the coordinate plane, let its [i]pixelation[/i] be the set of grid squares in $R$ that contain part of the line in their interior. If $P$ is a point chosen uniformly at random in $R$, then compute the expected number of sets of grid squares that are pixelations of some line through $P$.

Pawns are arranged on an $8 \times 8$ chessboard such that: Each $2 \times 1$ or $1 \times 2$ rectangle has at least $1$ pawn; Each $7 \times 1$ or $1 \times 7$ rectangle has at least $1$ pair of adjacent pawns. What is the minimum number of pawns in such an arrangement?

Given a finite string $S$ of symbols $X$ and $O$, we write $@(S)$ for the number of $X$'s in $S$ minus the number of $O$'s. (For example, $@(XOOXOOX) =-1$.) We call a string $S$ [b]balanced[/b] if every substring $T$ of (consecutive symbols) $S$ has the property $-2 \leq @(T) \leq 2$. (Thus $XOOXOOX$ is not balanced since it contains the sub-string $OOXOO$ whose $@$-value is $-3$.) Find, with proof, the number of balanced strings of length $n$.

The $ 8\times 18$ rectangle $ ABCD$ is cut into two congruent hexagons, as shown, in such a way that the two hexagons can be repositioned without overlap to form a square. What is $ y$? [asy] unitsize(2mm); defaultpen(fontsize(10pt)+linewidth(.8pt)); dotfactor=4; draw((0,4)--(18,4)--(18,-4)--(0,-4)--cycle); draw((6,4)--(6,0)--(12,0)--(12,-4)); label("$D$",(0,4),NW); label("$C$",(18,4),NE); label("$B$",(18,-4),SE); label("$A$",(0,-4),SW); label("$y$",(9,1)); [/asy]$ \textbf{(A) } 6\qquad \textbf{(B) } 7\qquad \textbf{(C) } 8\qquad \textbf{(D) } 9\qquad \textbf{(E) } 10$

A ladder is formed by removing some consecutive unit squares of a $10\times 10$ chessboard such that for each $k-$th row ($k\in \{1,2,\dots, 10\}$), the leftmost $k-1$ unit squares are removed. How many rectangles formed by composition of unit squares does the ladder have? $ \textbf{(A)}\ 625 \qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 715 \qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 1024 \qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 1512 \qquad\textbf{(E)}\ \text{None of the preceding} $

Prove that, for any natural number $n$, the graph of any increasing function $f : [0,1] \to [0, 1]$ can be covered by $n$ rectangles each of area whose sides are parallel to the coordinate axes. Assume that a rectangle includes both its interior and boundary points. (a) Assume that $f(x)$ is continuous on $[0,1]$. (b) Do not assume that $f(x)$ is continuous on $[0,1]$. (A Andjans, Riga) PS. (a) for O Level, (b) for A Level

A finite set $S$ of unit squares is chosen out of a large grid of unit squares. The squares of $S$ are tiled with isosceles right triangles of hypotenuse $2$ so that the triangles do not overlap each other, do not extend past $S$, and all of $S$ is fully covered by the triangles. Additionally, the hypotenuse of each triangle lies along a grid line, and the vertices of the triangles lie at the corners of the squares. Show that the number of triangles must be a multiple of $4$.

An $8 \times 11$ rectangle of unit squares somehow becomes disassembled into $21$ contiguous parts . Prove that at least two of these parts, except for rotations and reflections have the same shape.