Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 6.7 National olympiad Prove it Brazil

One has a long row of glasses and nn stones in the central glass (glass 00). The following movements are allowed:

• Movement AA
Figure 1
If there is at least one stone in glass ii and at least one in glass i+1i+1, one may make one stone in glass i+1i+1 jump to glass i1i-1, eliminating one stone in glass ii.

• Movement B
Figure 2
If there are at least two stones in glass i one may make a stone in glass i jump to glass i + 2 and make another stone jump to glass i - 1.

Prove the following: performing movements A and B for a sufficiently long time, one shall always obtain a configuration from which neither movements are allowed anymore. Besides this final configuration does not depend on the choices of movements during the process.

Solution

Assign xx' to a stone in the iith glass. Let's consider what happens to the sum of the number assigned to all stones with each movement.

Movement A replaces xi+xi+1x^i + x^{i+1} with xi1x^{i-1}; movement B replaces 2xi2x^i with xi1+xi+2x^{i-1} + x^{i+2}. So the difference in the sum is either xi1(1xx2)x^{i-1}(1 - x - x^2) or xi1(1+x32x)=xi1(1xx2)(1x)x^{i-1}(1 + x^3 - 2x) = x^{i-1}(1 - x - x^2)(1 - x).

Choose xx so that 1xx2=01-x-x^2=0, say x=ϕ1=512x = \phi^{-1} = \frac{\sqrt{5}-1}{2}. Then the sum SS of the numbers assigned to the stones always stays the same. There is a number xkx^k such that S<xkS < x^k, so there is a limit to the leftmost stone, so it won't move after a while. Now consider the sum without this stone; the leftmost stone (that is, the second leftmost stone overall) won't move after a while and so on. So the configuration will remain constant at some time, that is, there won't be any two stones in the same glass nor two stones in two consecutive glasses.

Now notice that the representation of SS in base ϕ1\phi^{-1} (all digits equal to one, no two consecutive ones) is unique: suppose on the contrary that there are two such representations and let kk be the first position from left to right in which those representations differ. This means that ϕk\phi^{-k} is equal to the sum of some numbers of the form ϕm\phi^{-m} for m>k+1m > k + 1. But m=k+2ϕm=ϕk21ϕ1=ϕk\sum_{m=k+2}^{\infty} \phi^{-m} = \frac{\phi^{-k-2}}{1-\phi^{-1}} = \phi^{-k}, so this isn't possible. So the final configuration is unique.

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