Suppose an ordered set of $ ({{a} _{1}}, \ {{a} _{2}},\ \ldots,\ {{a} _{n}}) $ real numbers, $n \ge 3 $. It is possible to replace the number $ {{a} _ {i}} $, $ i = \overline {2, \ n-1} $ by the number $ a_ {i} ^ {*} $ that $ {{a} _ {i}} + a_ {i} ^ {*} = {{a} _ {i-1}} + {{a} _ {i + 1}} $. Let $ ({{b} _ {1}},\ {{b} _ {2}}, \ \ldots, \ {{b} _ {n}}) $ be the set with the largest sum of numbers that can be obtained from this, and $ ({{c} _ {1}},\ {{c} _ {2}}, \ \ldots, \ {{c} _ {n}}) $ is a similar set with the least amount. For the odd $n \ge 3 $ and set $ (1,\ 3, \ \ldots, \ n, \ 2, \ 4, \ \ldots,\ n-1) $ find the values of the expressions $ {{b} _ {1}} + {{b} _ {2}} + \ldots + {{b} _ {n}} $ and $ {{c} _ {1}} + {{c} _ {2}} + \ldots + {{c} _ {n}} $.

Consider the set $A = \left\{\frac{j}{4}+\frac{100}{j}|j=1,2,3,..\right\} $ What is the smallest number that belongs to the $ A $ set?

4.4. Prove that there exists a set X of 1996 positive integers with the following properties: (i) the elements of X are pairwise coprime; (ii) all elements of X and all sums of two or more distinct elements of X are composite numbers

Prove that the set $\{1,2,…,12001\}$ can be partitioned into 5 groups so that none of them contains an arithmetic progression with length 11.

A subset $S$ of the natural numbers is called [i]dense [/i] for every $7$ consecutive natural numbers, at least $5$ of them are in $S$. Show that there exists a dense subset for which the equation $a^2+b^2=c^2$ has no solution for $a,b,c \in S$.

Given a positive real number $t$ , determine the sets $A$ of real numbers containing $t$ , for which there exists a set $B$ of real numbers depending on $A$ , $|B| \geq 4$ , such that the elements of the set $AB =\{ ab \mid a\in A , b \in B \}$ form a finite arithmetic progression .

Let there be $n$ students and $m$ clubs. The students joined the clubs so that the following is true: - For all students $x$, you can choose some clubs such that $x$ is the only student who joined all of the chosen clubs. Let the number of clubs each student joined be $a_1,a_2,...,a_m$. Prove that $$a_1!(m - a_1)! + a_2!(m - a_2)! + ... + a_n!(m -a_n)! \le m!$$

Let $A =\left\{a = q + \frac{1}{q }/ q \in Q^*,q > 0 \right\}$, $A + A = \{a + b |a,b \in A\}$,$A \cdot A =\{a \cdot b | a, b \in A\}$. Prove that: i) $A + A \ne A \cdot A$ ii) $(A + A) \cap N = (A \cdot A) \cap N$. Vasile Pop

Let $X$ be a set of $100$ elements. Find the smallest possible $n$ satisfying the following condition: Given a sequence of $n$ subsets of $X$, $A_1,A_2,\ldots,A_n$, there exists $1 \leq i < j < k \leq n$ such that $$A_i \subseteq A_j \subseteq A_k \text{ or } A_i \supseteq A_j \supseteq A_k.$$

Determine the sets $S{}$ of positive integers satisfying the following two conditions: [list=a] [*]For any positive integers $a, b, c{}$, if $ab + bc + ca{}$ is in $S$, then so are $a + b + c{}$ and $abc$; and [*]The set $S{}$ contains an integer $N \geqslant 160$ such that $N-2$ is not divisible by $4$. [/list] [i]Bogdan Blaga, United Kingdom[/i]

Let $S$ be the set of points $(x,y)$ in the coordinate plane such that two of the three quantities $3$, $x+2$, and $y-4$ are equal and the third of the three quantities is no greater than this common value. Which of the following is a correct description of $S$? $\textbf{(A) } \text{a single point} \qquad \textbf{(B) } \text{two intersecting lines} \\ \\ \textbf{(C) } \text{three lines whose pairwise intersections are three distinct points} \\ \\ \textbf{(D) } \text{a triangle} \qquad \textbf{(E) } \text{three rays with a common endpoint}$

$a)$ Prove that for all positive integers $n$ exists a set $M_n$ of positive integers with exactly $n$ elements and: $i)$ Arithmetic mean of arbitrary non-empty subset of $M_n$ is integer $ii)$ Geometric mean of arbitrary non-empty subset of $M_n$ is integer $iii)$ Both arithmetic mean and geometry mean of arbitrary non-empty subset of $M_n$ is integer $b)$ Does there exist infinite set $M$ of positive integers such that arithmetic mean of arbitrary non-empty subset of $M$ is integer

The set $S$ is a subset of $\{1, 2, \dots, 2025\}$ such that no two elements of $S$ differ by $2$ or by $7$. What is the largest number of elements that $S$ can have?

Let $n\ge k$ be positive integers, and let $\mathcal{F}$ be a family of finite sets with the following properties: (i) $\mathcal{F}$ contains at least $\binom{n}{k}+1$ distinct sets containing exactly $k$ elements; (ii) for any two sets $A, B\in \mathcal{F}$, their union $A\cup B$ also belongs to $\mathcal{F}$. Prove that $\mathcal{F}$ contains at least three sets with at least $n$ elements. (Proposed by Fedor Petrov, St. Petersburg State University)

a.) For all positive integer $k$ find the smallest positive integer $f(k)$ such that $5$ sets $s_1,s_2, \ldots , s_5$ exist satisfying: [b]i.[/b] each has $k$ elements; [b]ii.[/b] $s_i$ and $s_{i+1}$ are disjoint for $i=1,2,...,5$ ($s_6=s_1$) [b]iii.[/b] the union of the $5$ sets has exactly $f(k)$ elements. b.) Generalisation: Consider $n \geq 3$ sets instead of $5$.

Let $n$ a natural number and $A=\{1, 2, 3, \cdots, 2^{n+1}-1\}$. Prove that if we choose $2n+1$ elements differents of the set $A$, then among them are three distinct number $a,b$ and $c$ such that $$bc<2a^2<4bc$$

A nonempty set $S$ is called [i]Bally[/i] if for every $m\in S$, there are fewer than $\frac{1}{2}m$ elements of $S$ which are less than $m$. Determine the number of Bally subsets of $\{1, 2, . . . , 2020\}$.

Find all nonempty finite sets $X$ of real numbers such that for all $x\in X$, $x+|x| \in X$.

Consider all possible sets of natural numbers $(x_1, x_2, ..., x_{100})$ such that $1\leq x_i \leq 2017$ for every $i = 1,2, ..., 100$. We say that the set $(y_1, y_2, ..., y_{100})$ is greater than the set $(z_1, z_2, ..., z_{100})$ if $y_i> z_i$ for every $i = 1,2, ..., 100$. What is the largest number of sets that can be written on the board, so that any set is not more than the other set?

Givan the set $S = \{1,2,3,....,n\}$. We want to partition the set $S$ into three subsets $A,B,C$ disjoint (to each other) with $A\cup B\cup C=S$ , such that the sums of their elements $S_{A} S_{B} S_{C}$ to be equal .Examine if this is possible when: a) $n=2014$ b) $n=2015 $ c) $n=2018$

Let $n$ be positive integer. Let $S_1,S_2,\cdots,S_k$ be a collection of $2n$-element subsets of $\{1,2,3,4,...,4n-1,4n\}$ so that $S_{i}\cap S_{j}$ contains at most $n$ elements for all $1\leq i<j\leq k$. Show that $$k\leq 6^{(n+1)/2}$$

Given an $n$-gon ($n\ge 4$), consider a set $T$ of triangles formed by vertices of the polygon having the following property: Every two triangles in T have either two common vertices, or none. Prove that $T$ contains at most $n$ triangles.

Let $A$ be a set of positive integers. $A$ is called "balanced" if [and only if] the number of 3-element subsets of $A$ whose elements add up to a multiple of $3$ is equal to the number of 3-element subsets of $A$ whose elements add up to not a multiple of $3$. a. Find a 9-element balanced set. b. Prove that no set of $2013$ elements can be balanced.

A family of sets $F$ is called perfect if the following condition holds: For every triple of sets $X_1, X_2, X_3\in F$, at least one of the sets $$ (X_1\setminus X_2)\cap X_3,$$ $$(X_2\setminus X_1)\cap X_3$$ is empty. Show that if $F$ is a perfect family consisting of some subsets of a given finite set $U$, then $\left\lvert F\right\rvert\le\left\lvert U\right\rvert+1$. [i]Proposed by Michał Pilipczuk[/i]

Let $P = \{p_1,p_2,\ldots, p_{10}\}$ be a set of $10$ different prime numbers and let $A$ be the set of all the integers greater than $1$ so that their prime decomposition only contains primes of $P$. The elements of $A$ are colored in such a way that: [list] [*] each element of $P$ has a different color, [*] if $m,n \in A$, then $mn$ is the same color of $m$ or $n$, [*] for any pair of different colors $\mathcal{R}$ and $\mathcal{S}$, there are no $j,k,m,n\in A$ (not necessarily distinct from one another), with $j,k$ colored $\mathcal{R}$ and $m,n$ colored $\mathcal{S}$, so that $j$ is a divisor of $m$ and $n$ is a divisor of $k$, simultaneously. [/list] Prove that there exists a prime of $P$ so that all its multiples in $A$ are the same color.