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Combinatorics Difficulty 7.6 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Romania

In an art museum, nn paintings are exhibited, where n33n \ge 33 is a positive integer, and a total of 15 colors are used in such a way that any two paintings have at least one color in common, and no two paintings have exactly the same set of colors. Determine all possible values of n33n \ge 33 such that, no matter how we color the paintings with the above properties, we can choose four distinct paintings that we number T1,T2,T3T_1, T_2, T_3, and T4T_4 in such a way that any color used both in T1T_1 and T2T_2 is also used in T3T_3 or T4T_4.

Solution

We will prove that each n{33,34,,214}n \in \{33, 34, \dots, 2^{14}\} is a solution.

We begin by noticing that if we have a painting TiT_i in the museum that uses kk colors, the painting that uses the other 15k15-k colors cannot be in the museum. Therefore, out of the 21512^{15}-1 possible paintings that can be obtained with the 15 colors, we have a maximum of 2142^{14} paintings in the museum, and the maximum can be achieved if we consider all paintings that use color c1c_1 together with all 2142^{14} subsets of colors {c2,,c15}\{c_2, \dots, c_{15}\}.

We show that for any 33n21433 \le n \le 2^{14}, we can find the paintings T1,T2,T3,T4T_1, T_2, T_3, T_4 with the properties described in the problem. By TiTjT_i \cap T_j and TiTjT_i \cup T_j we mean the set of colors that are common to the paintings TiT_i and TjT_j, and the set of all colors used in the paintings TiT_i and TjT_j, respectively. We need to prove that there exist i1,i2,i3,i4{1,2,,n}i_1, i_2, i_3, i_4 \in \{1, 2, \dots, n\} such that:
(Ti1Ti2)Ti3Ti4 (T_{i_1} \cap T_{i_2}) \subset T_{i_3} \cup T_{i_4}
Assuming that for any choice of i<ji < j and k<k < \ell from {1,2,,n}\{1, 2, \dots, n\} with {i,j}{k,}=\{i, j\} \cap \{k, \ell\} = \emptyset, we have:
(TiTj)(TkT)1. |(T_i \cap T_j) \setminus (T_k \cup T_\ell)| \ge 1.
Studying the sum:
S=1i<jn1k<n{i,j}{k,}=(TiTj)(TkT), S = \sum_{\substack{1 \le i < j \le n \\ 1 \le k < \ell \le n \\ \{i,j\} \cap \{k,\ell\} = \emptyset}} |(T_i \cap T_j) \setminus (T_k \cup T_\ell)|,
we notice that this sum has (n2)(n22)\binom{n}{2} \cdot \binom{n-2}{2} terms, each of which is greater than or equal to 1, so we obtain:
Sn(n1)2(n2)(n3)2. S \ge \frac{n(n-1)}{2} \cdot \frac{(n-2)(n-3)}{2}.

Let's count the number of occurrences of each color cmc_m, where m=1,15m = \overline{1, 15}, and let nmn_m be the number of paintings TiT_i that contain color cmc_m. To have cm(TiTj)(TkT)c_m \in (T_i \cap T_j) \setminus (T_k \cup T_\ell), we must have cmTi,Tjc_m \in T_i, T_j and cmTk,Tc_m \notin T_k, T_\ell. If nm{0,1,n1,n}n_m \in \{0, 1, n-1, n\}, then there is no tuple (Ti,Tj,Tk,T)(T_i, T_j, T_k, T_\ell) for which cm(TiTj)(TkT)c_m \in (T_i \cap T_j) \setminus (T_k \cup T_\ell). For 2nmn22 \le n_m \le n-2, the pair (Ti,Tj)(T_i, T_j) can be chosen in (nm2)\binom{n_m}{2} ways, and the pair (Tk,T)(T_k, T_\ell) can be chosen in (nnm2)\binom{n-n_m}{2} ways. Therefore, we have:
S=m=12nmn215nm(nm1)2(nnm)(nnm1)2. S = \sum_{\substack{m=1 \\ 2 \le n_m \le n-2}}^{15} \frac{n_m(n_m-1)}{2} \cdot \frac{(n-n_m)(n-n_m-1)}{2}.
From AM-GM we have nm(nnm)(n2)2n_m(n - n_m) \le \left(\frac{n}{2}\right)^2 and (nm1)(n1nm)(n22)2(n_m - 1)(n - 1 - n_m) \le \left(\frac{n-2}{2}\right)^2, from which we obtain:
Sm=12nmn21514(n2)2(n22)21514(n2)2(n22)2<<n(n1)2(n2)(n3)2,n33, \begin{aligned} S & \le \sum_{\substack{m=1 \\ 2 \le n_m \le n-2}}^{15} \frac{1}{4} \left(\frac{n}{2}\right)^2 \cdot \left(\frac{n-2}{2}\right)^2 \le 15 \cdot \frac{1}{4} \cdot \left(\frac{n}{2}\right)^2 \cdot \left(\frac{n-2}{2}\right)^2 < \\ & < \frac{n(n-1)}{2} \cdot \frac{(n-2)(n-3)}{2}, \quad \forall n \ge 33, \end{aligned}
which is a contradiction. Therefore, for any 33n21433 \le n \le 2^{14} we have four paintings with the property from the statement.

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