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Combinatorics Difficulty 7.3 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Belarus

nn distinct points (n3n \ge 3) are marked on a plane so that no three of them lie on the same line. All points are connected with the segments. All segments are painted one of the four colors so that if in some triangle (with the vertices at the marked points) two sides have the same color, then all its sides have the same color (each of the four colors is used).
What is the largest possible value of nn?
(S. Sobolevskii)

Solution

Note that at most two segments of the same color start from any point. Otherwise there exist 4 points connected with the segments of the same color. But then either any of the other points are connected with these 4 points with the segments of the same color (it follows that all segments have the same color, which is impossible) or there exists a point connected with given 4 points with the segments of the remaining three colors. In this case this point is connected with at least two points with the segments of the same color (different from the color of the segment connected these two points), which is also impossible. So at most 2×4=82 \times 4 = 8 segments start from any point. Since (n1)(n-1) start from any point, we have n18n-1 \le 8, which gives n9n \le 9.

The example for n=9n = 9. To each point assign one of the pairs (1,1),(1,2),(1,3),(2,1),(2,2),(2,3),(3,1),(3,2),(3,3)(1,1), (1,2), (1,3), (2,1), (2,2), (2,3), (3,1), (3,2), (3,3), and to each color assign one of the numbers 1,2,3,41,2,3,4. Then three segments between points (1,1),(1,2),(1,3)(1,1), (1,2), (1,3), three segments between points (2,1),(2,2),(2,3)(2,1), (2,2), (2,3), and three segments between points (3,1),(3,2),(3,3)(3,1), (3,2), (3,3) we paint color 1; three segments between points (1,1),(2,1),(3,1)(1,1), (2,1), (3,1), three segments between points (1,2),(2,2),(3,2)(1,2), (2,2), (3,2), and three segments between points (1,3),(2,3),(3,3)(1,3), (2,3), (3,3) we paint color 2; three segments between points (1,1),(2,2),(3,3)(1,1), (2,2), (3,3), three segments between points (1,2),(2,3),(3,1)(1,2), (2,3), (3,1), and three segments between points (1,3),(2,1),(3,2)(1,3), (2,1), (3,2) we paint color 3; finally, three segments between points (1,1),(2,3),(3,2)(1,1), (2,3), (3,2), three segments between points (1,2),(2,1),(3,3)(1,2), (2,1), (3,3), and three segments between points (1,3),(2,2),(3,1)(1,3), (2,2), (3,1) we paint color 4.

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