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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Prove it Ukraine

nn students arrived to the summer camp. Every child (boy or girl) in the camp knows exactly one boy and one girl. Is it possible if

a) n=2000n = 2000;

b) n=2018n = 2018.

Solution

a) Suppose 10001000 boys and 10001000 girls arrived to the camp. We can split them into groups with 44 students in each: 22 boys and 22 girls. Moreover, they know each other in the following way: B1B2G2G1B1B_1 \leftrightarrow B_2 \leftrightarrow G_2 \leftrightarrow G_1 \leftrightarrow B_1. One can check that all conditions are satisfied.

b) Suppose by contradiction that it is possible. Then every boy can be put into a pair with a girl if they know each other. Thus, there has to be exactly 10091009 boys and 10091009 girls. Similarly, all the boys can be divided in pairs if they know each other, so the amount of boys has to be even. That leads to a contradiction.

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