Find all positive integers such that we can place one of the four arrows into each of the cells of an chessboard, so that all three of the following conditions are satisfied:
(1) Starting from any cell and moving in the direction of the arrows, we will always return to the starting cell, and along the way we never leave the board.
(2) Except for the topmost and bottommost rows, in any row the number of arrows equals the number of arrows (but the numbers may differ between different rows).
(3) Except for the leftmost and rightmost columns, in any column the number of arrows equals the number of arrows (but the numbers may differ between different columns).
Solution
The only possibility is (in which case the arrows form a clockwise or counterclockwise loop.)
Clearly the topmost row cannot contain ; suppose it has arrows . By condition (1), this means the second row must have arrows , but by condition (2) we also know the second row must have arrows . By the same argument, we know that rows 3 through must each have arrows and arrows , while the bottommost row must have arrows and arrows . In other words, over the whole board there are arrows and arrows .
By the same reasoning, if the leftmost column has arrows , then by conditions (1) and (3), we know that over the whole board there are arrows and arrows , so the total number of arrows on the whole board is . But the total number of arrows must equal the number of cells, so we must have
However, since , this is impossible when .