Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:

Let v1,v2,,vmv_{1}, v_{2}, \ldots, v_{m} be vectors in Rn\mathbb{R}^{n}, such that each has a strictly positive first coordinate. Consider the following process. Start with the zero vector w=(0,0,,0)Rnw=(0,0, \ldots, 0) \in \mathbb{R}^{n}. Every round, choose an ii such that 1im1 \leq i \leq m and wvi0w \cdot v_{i} \leq 0, and then replace ww with w+viw+v_{i}.
Show that there exists a constant CC such that regardless of your choice of ii at each step, the process is guaranteed to terminate in CC rounds. The constant CC may depend on the vectors v1,,vmv_{1}, \ldots, v_{m}.

Solution

Solution:

Let w0=0w_{0}=0, let wrw_{r} be the vector ww after rr rounds. Also, let e1e_{1} denote the vector (1,0,,0)(1,0, \ldots, 0). Note that
wr+12=(wr+vi)2=wr2+vi2+2wrviwr2+vi2 w_{r+1}^{2}=\left(w_{r}+v_{i}\right)^{2}=w_{r}^{2}+v_{i}^{2}+2 w_{r} \cdot v_{i} \leq w_{r}^{2}+v_{i}^{2}
as we have by the condition that wrvi0w_{r} \cdot v_{i} \leq 0. Therefore, we have by induction that wrMr\left|w_{r}\right| \leq M \sqrt{r}, where M=maxiviM=\max _{i}\left|v_{i}\right|. Also, we have that
wr+1e1=wre1+vie1 w_{r+1} \cdot e_{1}=w_{r} \cdot e_{1}+v_{i} \cdot e_{1}
so wre1mrw_{r} \cdot e_{1} \geq m r, where m=mini(vie1)>0m=\min _{i}\left(v_{i} \cdot e_{1}\right)>0.
Now using the obvious inequality
Mrwrwre1mr M \sqrt{r} \geq\left|w_{r}\right| \geq w_{r} \cdot e_{1} \geq m r
we get that rM2m2r \leq \frac{M^{2}}{m^{2}}, as desired.

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