Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /63 of 224

Combinatorics Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it Belarus

Given a 20×2020 \times 20 table with one of two signs "+" or "-" in any of its cells. Per move one can replace the signs in all cells of some row (or of some column) by the opposite signs. At the beginning there are 88 minuses in the table (all other signs are pluses). After some moves the table with exactly 5050 minuses is obtained.
Prove that exactly one initial minus is in the same cell.

Solution

than 1010 (since 0x100 \le x \le 10, 0y100 \le y \le 10). It follows that exactly one number, namely 7272, may be presented as the product of two positive integers no greater than 1010 (72=8972 = 8 \cdot 9, e.g., x=1,y=2x = 1, y = 2). It corresponds to the case when 77 initial minuses are changed. This means that exactly one initial minus keeps its position.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

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