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Combinatorics Difficulty 8.2 Shortlist Prove it Romania

Given a prime number pp congruent to 11 modulo 55 such that 2p+12p + 1 is also prime, show that there exists a matrix of zeros and ones containing exactly 4p4p (respectively, 4p+24p + 2) ones no submatrix of which contains exactly 2p2p (respectively, 2p+12p + 1) ones.

Solution

Let p=5q+1p = 5q + 1, q2q \ge 2, and write 4p=5(4q+1)14p = 5(4q + 1) - 1. Form a 55-by-(4q+1)(4q + 1) matrix consisting of ones only except for a single entry. Such a matrix has exactly 4p4p ones. A submatrix comprising rr rows, 1r51 \le r \le 5, and ss columns, 1s4q+11 \le s \le 4q + 1, contains rsrs or rs1rs-1 ones. In the former case, rs=2prs = 2p implies rpr \ge p or sps \ge p, because pp is prime; in the latter, rs1=2prs-1 = 2p implies rs=2p+1rs = 2p+1, so r=2p+1r = 2p+1 or s=2p+1s = 2p+1, because 2p+12p+1 is prime. Both cases contradict the size of the matrix, so no submatrix contains exactly 2p2p ones.

Next, write 4p+2=5(4q+1)+14p+2 = 5(4q+1)+1. Now form a 55-by-(4q+1)(4q + 1) matrix consisting of ones only except for one column that contains only a single one. Such a matrix has exactly 4p+24p + 2 ones. A submatrix comprising rr rows, 1r51 \le r \le 5, and ss all-one columns, 0s4q+10 \le s \le 4q+1, contains rsrs or rs+1rs+1 ones. In the former case, rs=2p+1rs = 2p+1 implies r=2p+1r = 2p+1 or s=2p+1s = 2p+1 because 2p+12p+1 is prime; in the latter, rs+1=2p+1rs+1 = 2p+1, so either rpr \ge p or sps \ge p since pp is prime. Again, this contradicts the size of the matrix and the conclusion follows.

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