Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Prove it Soviet Union

Problem:

An investigator works out that he needs to ask at most 9191 questions on the basis that all the answers will be yes or no and all will be true. The questions may depend upon the earlier answers. Show that he can make do with 105105 questions if at most one answer could be a lie.

Solution

Solution:

Suppose he asks nn questions as usual, and then asks "did you lie to any of the last nn questions?" If the reply is a truthful no, then the nn answers were correct. If the reply is a lying no, then the nn answers were still correct. On the other hand if the answer is yes, then the nn answers might have been correct and might not. However, a lie has certainly been told, so all future answers must be truthful and so he could ask the nn questions again.

91=7×1391 = 7 \times 13, so the obvious candidates for nn are 77 and 1313. If we take n=7n = 7, then the worst case is 1313 check questions and 77 repeat questions. That does not work because he needs 2020 extra questions and only has 1414. A little thought suggests reducing nn each time. So the first batch of questions is 1313, followed by a check question. If the check answer is yes, then he knows a lie has been told and asks the 1313 questions again. No further check questions are needed, and he has used exactly 1414 extra questions. If the check answer is no, then the lie may not have been told, so the next batch of questions is 1212, followed by a check question, and so on. That allows him to ask 13+12++1=9113 + 12 + \ldots + 1 = 91 questions. If he gets a yes to the check question after the batch of ii, then he ignores the answers to that batch and asks them again, thus asking a total of 1414 extra questions, but thereafter asks no check questions.

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