Found problems: 15
1980 Swedish Mathematical Competition, 5
A [i]word[/i] is a string of the symbols $a, b$ which can be formed by repeated application of the following:
(1) $ab$ is a word;
(2) if $X$ and $Y$ are words, then so is $XY$;
(3) if $X$ is a word, then so is $aXb$.
How many words have $12$ letters?
1998 Tournament Of Towns, 1
Anya, Borya, and Vasya listed words that could be formed from a given set of letters. They each listed a different number of words : Anya listed the most, Vasya the least . They were awarded points as follows. Each word listed by only one of them scored $2$ points for this child. Each word listed by two of them scored $1$ point for each of these two children. Words listed by all three of them scored $0$ points. Is it possible that Vasya got the highest score, and Anya
the lowest?
(A Shapovalov)
2015 District Olympiad, 4
Determine all pairs of natural numbers, the components of which have the same number of digits and the double of their product is equal with the number formed by concatenating them.
2017 Hanoi Open Mathematics Competitions, 10
Consider all words constituted by eight letters from $\{C ,H,M, O\}$. We arrange the words in an alphabet sequence.
Precisely, the first word is $CCCCCCCC$, the second one is $CCCCCCCH$, the third is $CCCCCCCM$, the fourth one is $CCCCCCCO, ...,$ and the last word is $OOOOOOOO$.
a) Determine the $2017$th word of the sequence?
b) What is the position of the word $HOMCHOMC$ in the sequence?
1983 All Soviet Union Mathematical Olympiad, 361
The Abba tribe language alphabet contains two letters only. Not a word of this language is a beginning of another word. Can this tribe vocabulary contain $3$ four-letter, $10$ five-letter, $30$ six-letter and $5$ seven-letter words?
1992 Austrian-Polish Competition, 9
Given an integer $n > 1$, consider words composed of $n$ letters $A$ and $n$ letters $B$. A word $X_1...X_{2n}$ is said to belong to set $R(n)$ (respectively, $S(n)$) if no initial segment (respectively, exactly one initial segment) $X_1...X_k$ with $1 \le k < 2n$ consists of equally many letters $A$ and $B$. If $r(n)$ and $s(n)$ denote the cardinalities of $R(n)$ and $S(n)$ respectively, compute $s(n)/r(n)$.
2001 Estonia National Olympiad, 5
A tribe called Ababab uses only letters $A$ and $B$, and they create words according to the following rules:
(1) $A$ is a word;
(2) if $w$ is a word, then $ww$ and $w\overline{w}$ are also words, where $\overline{w}$ is obtained from $w$ by replacing all letters $A$ with $B$ and all letters $B$ with $A$ ( $xy$ denotes the concatenation of $x$ and $y$)
(3) all words are created by rules (1) and (2).
Prove that any two words with the same number of letters differ exactly in half of their letters.
1982 Tournament Of Towns, (029) 3
$60$ symbols, each of which is either $X$ or $O$, are written consecutively on a strip of paper. This strip must then be cut into pieces with each piece containing symbols symmetric about their centre, e.g. $O, XX, OXXXXX, XOX$, etc.
(a) Prove that there is a way of cutting the strip so that there are no more than $24$ such pieces.
(b) Give an example of such an arrangement of the signs for which the number of pieces cannot be less than $15$.
(c) Try to improve the result of (b).
2014 NZMOC Camp Selection Problems, 10
In the land of Microbablia the alphabet has only two letters, ‘A’ and ‘B’. Not surprisingly, the inhabitants are obsessed with the band ABBA. Words in the local dialect with a high ABBA-factor are considered particularly lucky. To compute the ABBA-factor of a word you just count the number of occurrences of ABBA within the word (not necessarily consecutively). So for instance AABA has ABBA-factor $0$, ABBA has ABBA-factor $1$, AABBBA has ABBA-factor $6$, and ABBABBA has ABBA factor $8$. What is the greatest possible ABBA-factor for a $100$ letter word?
1988 Tournament Of Towns, (174) 7
Consider a sequence of words each consisting of two letters, $A$ and $B$ . The first word is "$A$" , while the second word is "$B$" . The $k$-th word is obtained from the ($k -2$)-nd by writing after it the ($k -1$)th one. (So the first few elements of the sequence are "$A$" , "$B$" ,"$AB$" , "$BAB$" , "$ABBAB$" . ) Does there exist in this sequence a "periodical" word, i.e. a word of the form $P P P ... P$ , where $P$ is a word , repeated at least once?
(Remark: For instance, the word $BABBBABB$ is of the form $PP$ , in which $P$ is repeated exactly once . )
(A. Andjans, Riga)
1977 All Soviet Union Mathematical Olympiad, 250
Given scales and a set of $n$ different weights. We take weights in turn and add them on one of the scales sides. Let us denote "$L$" the scales state with the left side down, and "$R$" -- with the right side down.
a) Prove that you can arrange the weights in such an order, that we shall obtain the sequence $LRLRLRLR...$ of the scales states. (That means that the state of the scales will be changed after putting every new weight.)
b) Prove that for every $n$-letter word containing $R$'s and $L$'s only you can arrange the weights in such an order, that the sequence of the scales states will be described by that word.
1988 Tournament Of Towns, (183) 6
Consider a sequence of words , consisting of the letters $A$ and $B$ .
The first word in the sequence is "$A$" . The k-th word i s obtained from the $(k-1)$-th by means of the following transformation : each $A$ is substituted by $AAB$ , and each $B$ is substituted by $A$. It is easily seen that every word is an initial part of the next word. The initial parts of these words coincide to give a sequence of letters $AABAABAAA BAABAAB...$
(a) In which place of this sequence is the $1000$-th letter $A$?
(b ) Prove that this sequence is not periodic.
(V . Galperin , Moscows)
1992 Bundeswettbewerb Mathematik, 2
All $n$-digit words from the alphabet $\{0, 1\}$ considered. These $2^n$ words should be in a sequence $w_0, w_1, w_2, ..., w_{2^-1}$ be arranged that $w_m$ from $w_{m-1}$ by changing of a single ornament ($m = 1, 2, 3, ..., 2n-1$). Prove that the following algorithm achievesthis :
a) Start with $w_0 = 000... 00$.
b) Let $w_{m-1} = a_1a_2a_3 ... a_n$ with $a_i \in \{0; 1\}$, $i = 1, 2, 3, ..., n$.
Determine the exponent $e(m)$ of the highest power of two dividing $m$ and set $j = e(m)+1$. In $w_{m-1}$ replace the ornament $a_j$ with $1-aj$. this is now $w_m$.
2023 Bulgaria EGMO TST, 3
A pair of words consisting only of the letters $a$ and $b$ (with repetitions) is [i]good[/i] if it is $(a,b)$ or of one of the forms $(uv, v)$, $(u, uv)$, where $(u,v)$ is a good pair. Prove that if $(\alpha, \beta)$ is a good pair, then there exists a palindrome $\gamma$ such that $\alpha\beta = a\gamma b$.
2003 Singapore MO Open, 1
A sequence $(a_1,a_2,...,a_{675})$ is given so that each term is an alphabet in the English language (no distinction is made between lower and upper case letters). It is known that in the sequence $a$ is never followed by $b$ and $c$ is never followed by $d$. Show that there are integers $m$ and $n$ with $1 \le m < n \le 674$ such that $a_m = a_n$ and $a_{m+1} = a_{n+1}$·