Category Archives: problem

2021-24 The squares of wins and losses

There are \(n\) people participating to a chess tournament and every two players play one game. There are no draws. Let \(a_i\) be the number of wins of the \(i\)-th player and \(b_i\) be the number of losses of the \(i\)-th player. Prove that
\[\sum_{i\in [n]} a_i^2 = \sum_{i\in [n]} b_i^2.\]

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Notice on 2021-21

The problem on 2021-21 was written in an ambiguous way, which led the contestants to misunderstand the problem. The problem is updated to be more clear, and anyone is again welcome to submit a solution for the problem.

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2021-22 Sum of fractions

Determine all rational numbers that can be written as
\[
\frac{1}{n_1} + \frac{1}{n_1 n_2} + \frac{1}{n_1 n_2 n_3} + \dots + \frac{1}{n_1 n_2 n_3 \dots n_k} ,
\]
where \( n_1, n_2, n_3 \dots, n_k \) are positive integers greater than \(1\).

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2021-21 Different unions

Let \(F\) be a family of nonempty subsets of \([n]=\{1,\dots,n\}\) such that no two disjoint subsets of \(F\) have the same union. In other words, for \(F =\{ A_1,A_2,\dots, A_k\},\) there exists no two sets \(I, J\subseteq [k]\) with \(I\cap J =\emptyset\) and \(\bigcup_{i\in I}A_i = \bigcup_{j\in J} A_j\). Determine the maximum possible size of \(F\).

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2021-20 A circle of perfect squares

Say a natural number \(n\) is a cyclically perfect if one can arrange the numbers from 1 to \(n\) on the circle without a repeat so that the sum of any two consecutive numbers is a perfect square. Show that 32 is the smallest cyclically perfect number. Find the second smallest cyclically perfect number.

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2021-19 The answer is zero

Suppose that \( a_1 + a_2 + \dots + a_n =0 \) for real numbers \( a_1, a_2, \dots, a_n \) and \( n \geq 2\). Set \( a_{n+i}=a_i \) for \( i=1, 2, \dots \). Prove that
\[
\sum_{i=1}^n \frac{1}{a_i (a_i+a_{i+1}) (a_i+a_{i+1}+a_{i+2}) \dots (a_i+a_{i+1}+\dots+a_{i+n-2})} =0
\]
if the denominators are nonzero.

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2021-18 Independent sets in a tree

Let \(T\) be a tree (an acyclic connected graph) on the vertex set \([n]=\{1,\dots, n\}\).
Let \(A\) be the adjacency matrix of \(T\), i.e., the \(n\times n\) matrix with \(A_{ij} = 1\) if \(i\) and \(j\) are adjacent in \(T\) and \(A_{ij}=0\) otherwise. Prove that the number of nonnegative eigenvalues of \(A\) equals to the size of the largest independent set of \(T\). Here, an independent set is a set of vertices where no two vertices in the set are adjacent.

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2021-16 Optimal constant

For a given positive integer \( n \) and a real number \( a \), find the maximum constant \( b \) such that
\[
x_1^n + x_2^n + \dots + x_n^n + a x_1 x_2 \dots x_n \geq b (x_1 + x_2 + \dots + x_n)^n
\]
for any non-negative \( x_1, x_2, \dots, x_n \).

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