Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Prove it Mongolia

Let k,nk, n be positive integers. Given A0,A1,,AnA_0, A_1, \dots, A_n points and edges that connect them are colored with kk colors. S(n,k)S(n, k) is the maximum number of angles, whose sides are colored with different colors. Prove that
S(n,k)>(k2)[nk]2n. S(n, k) > \binom{k}{2} \cdot \left[\frac{n}{k}\right]^2 \cdot n.

Solution

We are going to give a construction of coloring, whose number of angles with different colored sides is greater than (k2)[nk]2n\binom{k}{2} \cdot \left[\frac{n}{k}\right]^2 \cdot n.

Case I. Let kk be an odd number. Let A1,,AkA_1, \dots, A_k be subsets of {A0,A1,,An}\{A_0, A_1, \dots, A_n\} such that A1Ak={A0,A1,,An}A_1 \cup \dots \cup A_k = \{A_0, A_1, \dots, A_n\}, AiAj=A_i \cap A_j = \emptyset for iji \neq j, and [nk]Ai[nk]+1\left[\frac{n}{k}\right] \le |A_i| \le \left[\frac{n}{k}\right] + 1.
Let us color the edges between A0A_0 and AiA_i with color ii, and color the edges between AiA_i and AjA_j with color k+12(i+j)(modk)\frac{k+1}{2}(i+j) \pmod{k}.

Case II. Let kk be an even number.

Lemma. If kk is even, we can color a complete graph on kk points with k1k-1 colors, so that edges with a general vertex have different colors.
If we color the edges between AiA_i and AjA_j with the color given by the lemma, we'll have the construction we desired.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.