Suppose that $ \{a_n\}$ is an arithmetic sequence with \[a_1 \plus{} a_2 \plus{} \cdots \plus{} a_{100} \equal{} 100\quad\text{and}\quad a_{101} \plus{} a_{102} \plus{} \cdots \plus{} a_{200} \equal{} 200.\] What is the value of $ a_2 \minus{} a_1$? $ \textbf{(A)}\ 0.0001 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 0.001 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 0.01 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 0.1 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 1$

Suppose that the sequence of real numbers $a_1,a_2,\ldots$ satisfies $a_1 = - \sqrt{1}, a_2 = \sqrt{2}$, and for all $k > 1$, \[ \frac{a_{k+1}+a_{k-1}}{a_k} = \frac{\sqrt{3} + \sqrt{1}}{\sqrt{2}}. \] Find $a_{2023}$. [i]Proposed by Kevin You[/i]

A single player game has the following rules: initially, there are $10$ piles of stones with $1,2,...,10$ stones, respectively. A movement consists on making one of the following operations: i) to choose $2$ piles, both of them with at least $2$ stones, combine them and then add $2$ stones to the new pile; ii) to choose a pile with at least $4$ stones, remove $2$ stones from it, and then split it into two piles with amount of piles to be chosen by the player. The game continues until is not possible to make an operation. a) Give an example of a sequence of moves leading to the end of the game. b) Make a table with the total number of stones and the number of piles before and after the first 5 operations in your example above. c) Show that the number of piles with one stone in the end of the game is always the same, no matter how the movements are made.

Let $p$ and $q$ be two given positive integers. A set of $p+q$ real numbers $a_1<a_2<\cdots <a_{p+q}$ is said to be balanced iff $a_1,\ldots,a_p$ were an arithmetic progression with common difference $q$ and $a_p,\ldots,a_{p+q}$ where an arithmetic progression with common difference $p$. Find the maximum possible number of balanced sets, so that any two of them have nonempty intersection. Comment: The intended problem also had "$p$ and $q$ are coprime" in the hypothesis. A typo when the problems where written made it appear like that in the exam (as if it were the only typo in the olympiad). Fortunately, the problem can be solved even if we didn't suppose that and it can be further generalized: we may suppose that a balanced set has $m+n$ reals $a_1<\cdots <a_{m+n-1}$ so that $a_1,\ldots,a_m$ is an arithmetic progression with common difference $p$ and $a_m,\ldots,a_{m+n-1}$ is an arithmetic progression with common difference $q$.

$(CZS 6)$ Let $d$ and $p$ be two real numbers. Find the first term of an arithmetic progression $a_1, a_2, a_3, \cdots$ with difference $d$ such that $a_1a_2a_3a_4 = p.$ Find the number of solutions in terms of $d$ and $p.$

The sequence $(x_n)_{n\in N}$ satisfies $x_1 = 2015$ and $x_{n+1} =\sqrt[3]{13x_n - 18}$ for all $n \ge 1$. Determine $\lim_{n\to \infty} x_n$.

In $\mathbb{R}^3$, let there be a cube $Q$ and a sequence of other cubes, all of which are homothetic to $Q$ with coefficients of homothety that are each smaller than $1$. Prove that if this sequence of homothetic cubes completely fills $Q$, the sum of their coefficients of homothety is not less than $4$.

Let $f(x,y,z) = x^2+y^2+z^2+xyz$. Let $p(x,y,z), q(x,y,z)$, $r(x,y,z)$ be polynomials with real coefficients satisfying \[ f(p(x,y,z), q(x,y,z), r(x,y,z)) = f(x,y,z). \] Prove or disprove the assertion that the sequence $p,q,r$ consists of some permutation of $\pm x, \pm y, \pm z$, where the number of minus signs is $0$ or $2.$

Two infinite arithmetic progressions are called considerable different if the do not only differ by the absence of finitely many members at the beginning of one of the sequences. How many pairwise considerable different non-constant arithmetic progressions of positive integers that contain an infinite non-constant geometric progression $ (b_n)_{n\ge0}$ with $ b_2\equal{}40 \cdot 2009$ are there?

For positive integer $x>1$, define set $S_x$ as $$S_x=\{p^\alpha|p \textup{ is one of the prime divisor of }x,\alpha \in \mathbb{N},p^\alpha|x,\alpha \equiv v_p(x)(\textup{mod} 2)\},$$ where $v_p(n)$ is the power of prime divisor $p$ in positive integer $n.$ Let $f(x)$ be the sum of all the elements of $S_x$ when $x>1,$ and $f(1)=1.$ Let $m$ be a given positive integer, and the sequence $a_1,a_2,\cdots,a_n,\cdots$ satisfy that for any positive integer $n>m,$ $a_{n+1}=\max\{ f(a_n),f(a_{n-1}+1),\cdots,f(a_{n-m}+m)\}.$ Prove that (1)there exists constant $A,B(0<A<1),$ such that when positive integer $x$ has at least two different prime divisors, $f(x)<Ax+B$ holds; (2)there exists positive integer $Q$, such that for any positive integer $n,a_n<Q.$

A sequence of functions $\, \{f_n(x) \} \,$ is defined recursively as follows: \begin{align*}f_1(x) &= \sqrt{x^2 + 48}, \quad \mbox{and} \\ f_{n+1}(x) &= \sqrt{x^2 + 6f_n(x)} \quad \mbox{for } n \geq 1.\end{align*} (Recall that $\sqrt{\makebox[5mm]{}}$ is understood to represent the positive square root.) For each positive integer $n$, find all real solutions of the equation $\, f_n(x) = 2x \,$.

A one player game is played on the triangular board shown on the picture. A token is placed on each circle. Each token is white on one side and black on the other. Initially, the token at one vertex of the triangle has the black side up, while the others have the white sides up. A move consists of removing a token with the black side up and turning over the adjacent tokens (two tokens are adjacent if they are joined by a segment). Is it possible to remove all the tokens by a sequence of moves? [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/d/2/aabf82a0ddd6907482f27e6e0f1e1b56cd931d.png[/img]

Consider sequences $a_1, a_2, a_3,...$ of positive integers. Determine the smallest possible value of $a_{2010}$ if (i) $a_n < a_{n+1}$ for all $n\ge 1$, (ii) $a_i + a_l > a_j + a_k$ for all quadruples $ (i, j, k, l)$ which satisfy $1 \le i < j \le k < l$.

Let $f:[0,1]\to\mathbb R$ be a twice continuously differentiable increasing function. Define the sequences given by $L_n=\frac1n\sum_{k=0}^{n-1}f\left(\frac kn\right)$ and $U_n=\frac1n\sum_{k=0}^nf\left(\frac kn\right)$, $n\ge1$. 1. The interval $[L_n,U_n]$ is divided into three equal segments. Prove that, for large enough $n$, the number $I=\int^1_0f(x)\text dx$ belongs to the middle one of these three segments.

How many sequences of $0$s and $1$s of length $19$ are there that begin with a $0$, end with a $0$, contain no two consecutive $0$s, and contain no three consecutive $1$s? $\textbf{(A) }55\qquad\textbf{(B) }60\qquad\textbf{(C) }65\qquad\textbf{(D) }70\qquad\textbf{(E) }75$

Let $a<b<c$ be three integers such that $a,b,c$ is an arithmetic progression and $a,c,b$ is a geometric progression. What is the smallest possible value of $c$? $\textbf{(A) }-2\qquad \textbf{(B) }1\qquad \textbf{(C) }2\qquad \textbf{(D) }4\qquad \textbf{(E) }6\qquad$