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Combinatorics Difficulty 7.2 National olympiad, round 2 Prove it Argentina

Lucía writes the integer numbers from 11 to 2727, in some order, around a circumference. Then, she calculates the sum of each pair of adjacent numbers, thus obtaining 2727 sums. We call AA the largest of these sums and BB the smallest. Find the minimum possible value of ABA - B.

Show how Lucía can write the numbers to obtain that minimum value and explain why it is not possible to obtain a smaller value.

Solution

It is easy to see that AB0A - B \neq 0. Indeed, we have AB=0A - B = 0 if and only if the 2727 sums are all equal; however, if x,y,zx, y, z are three consecutive numbers on the circumference, the sums x+yx+y and y+zy+z are different, since xzx \neq z.

We will now prove that it is not possible that AB=1A - B = 1. If this is the case, when considering three consecutive numbers x,y,zx, y, z on the circumference, the sums x+yx+y and y+zy+z differ by 11, since they are not equal, and so, xx and zz differ by 11. Now look at the place where the number 2727 is located; assume the previous numbers are a,ba, b and the following are c,dc, d.

Figure 1

By the previous arguments, 2727 and dd differ by 11, and the same happens with 2727 and aa. But the only written number that differs by 11 with 2727 is 2626; then, both aa and dd would be equal to 2626, a contradiction. This proves that we cannot achieve AB=1A - B = 1.

Finally, we show an example where AB=2A - B = 2.

First, Lucía writes number 11 and then, she alternates odd and even numbers, writing odd numbers in decreasing order and even numbers in increasing order.

16
Figure 2

The first sum is 1+27=281+27=28 and, the following ones are alternately 2929 and 2727. Therefore, AB=2927=2A - B = 29 - 27 = 2, as stated.

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