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USAMO, 2009

Combinatorics Difficulty 7.4 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it United States

Let nn be a positive integer. Determine the size of the largest subset of {−n,−n+1,…,n−1,n}\{-n, -n+1, \dots, n-1, n\} which does not contain three elements a,b,ca, b, c (not necessarily distinct) satisfying a+b+c=0a+b+c=0.

Solution

The maximum size is nn if nn is even, and n+1n+1 if nn is odd, achieved by the subset
{−n,…,−⌊n2⌋−1,⌊n2⌋+1,…,n}. \{-n, \dots, -\lfloor \frac{n}{2} \rfloor - 1, \lfloor \frac{n}{2} \rfloor + 1, \dots, n\}.
Lemma 1. Let A,BA, B be finite nonempty subsets of Z\mathbb{Z}. Then the set A+B={a+b:a∈A,b∈B}A + B = \{a + b : a \in A, b \in B\} has cardinality at least ∣A∣+∣B∣−1|A| + |B| - 1.
Proof. Write A={a1,…,al}A = \{a_1, \dots, a_l\} and B={b1,…,bm}B = \{b_1, \dots, b_m\} with a1<⋯<ala_1 < \dots < a_l and b1<⋯<bmb_1 < \dots < b_m. Then
a1+b1,…,a1+bm,a2+bm,…,al+bm a_1 + b_1, \dots, a_1 + b_m, a_2 + b_m, \dots, a_l + b_m
is a strictly increasing sequence of l+m−1l+m-1 elements of A+BA+B. □\square

Let SS be a subset of {−n,…,n}\{-n, \dots, n\} with the desired property; clearly 0∉S0 \notin S. Put A=S∩{−n,…,−1}A = S \cap \{-n, \dots, -1\} and B=S∩{1,…,n}B = S \cap \{1, \dots, n\}. Then A+BA+B and −S={−s:s∈S}-S = \{-s : s \in S\} are disjoint subsets of {−n,…,n}\{-n, \dots, n\}, so by the lemma,
2n+1≥∣A+B∣+∣−S∣≥∣A∣+∣B∣−1+∣S∣=2∣S∣−1, 2n + 1 \ge |A + B| + | - S| \ge |A| + |B| - 1 + |S| = 2|S| - 1,
or ∣S∣≤n+1|S| \le n+1. If nn is odd, we are done.

If nn is even, we must still show that ∣S∣=n+1|S| = n+1 is impossible. Since A+B⊆{−n+1,…,n−1}A+B \subseteq \{-n+1, \dots, n-1\}, we cannot achieve the equality 2n+1=∣A+B∣+∣−S∣2n+1 = |A+B| + |-S| unless −n,n∈−S-n, n \in -S, or equivalently −n,n∈S-n, n \in S. Since −n∈S-n \in S, each of the sets {1,n−1},…,{n/2−1,n/2+1},{n/2}\{1, n-1\}, \dots, \{n/2-1, n/2+1\}, \{n/2\} must contain an element not in BB. Thus ∣B∣≤n/2|B| \le n/2, and similarly ∣A∣≤n/2|A| \le n/2, contradicting the hypothesis ∣S∣=n+1|S| = n+1.

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