Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /23 of 24

Combinatorics Difficulty 9.0 Shortlist Prove it Romania

Determine the smallest positive integer kk for which there exists a set AA of 10 points in the plane, no three of which are collinear, having the following property: it is possible to color the 45 segments with endpoints in AA using kk colors so that any two segments of the same color intersect either in their interior or at an endpoint.

Solution

Lemma. Given 5 points in the plane, no three collinear, it is impossible to color the 10 segments determined by them with only 2 colors so that any two segments of the same color intersect.

First, we show that any 4 points determine a monochromatic triangle. The 4 points form either a convex or concave quadrilateral. Label the points AA, BB, CC, DD so that ABAB, CDCD and ADAD, BCBC are pairs of non-intersecting segments. Without loss of generality, assume ABAB, BCBC are red and CDCD, ADAD are blue. The color of ACAC (red or blue) then determines a monochromatic triangle.

Next, we show that there cannot be two distinct monochromatic triangles of the same color. Suppose there are two red triangles, one being ABCABC. Then any red segment must have an endpoint in {A,B,C}\{A, B, C\}. Without loss of generality, assume the other red triangle is ABDABD. The coloring rule then implies that the pairs of segments ADAD, BCBC and ACAC, BDBD intersect, which is impossible.

Therefore, since two distinct monochromatic triangles of the same color cannot exist, the 5 monochromatic triangles determined by the 5 subsets of 4 points would have to be identical, i.e., contain the same triple of points for every 4-point subset, which is a contradiction.

Step 1.
Consider a regular 10-gon and color its vertices alternately with two colors: red and blue. Let vv be a red vertex. Consider the 9 segments containing vv, together with the diagonal formed by the two adjacent blue vertices. Any two of these segments intersect (either in their interior or at endpoints), so they can be colored with the same color. Thus, we can cover all segments except the diagonals of the pentagon formed by the blue vertices using 5 colors. Since those diagonals intersect pairwise, they require a sixth color.

Step 2.
We prove that k6k \ge 6 using the lemma. Let AA be a set of points as in the statement, and consider a line l0l_0 not parallel to any of the 45 segments determined by the points of AA. Ordering the distances of the 10 points from l0l_0, we construct a line ll parallel to l0l_0 so that there are 5 points on each side of ll. Look at the segments formed by the 5 points on the same side of ll. By the lemma, at least 3 colors are needed to color these segments so that any two segments of the same color intersect. On the other hand, no segment on one side of ll can have the same color as a segment on the other side since they do not intersect. Thus, at least 6 colors are needed to color all 45 segments, completing the proof.

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 and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.