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Combinatorics Difficulty 7.2 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Ireland

A game of coins is played as follows: You start with 11 head and 11 tail on a table. At each turn, you can perform any one of the following moves:

a. You can turn over all the coins on the table.

b. You can triple the numbers of heads and tails on the table.

c. If there are at least 44 tails on the table, you can turn over 44 tails.

d. If there are at least 55 tails on the table, you can turn over 33 of the tails and discard 22 of the tails.

Knowing that at the end of a game you have 20242024 heads, what are the possible numbers of tails at the end of that game?

Solution

Let xx be the number of heads and yy the number of tails at each point of the game. The pair (x,y)(x, y) completely describes the state of the game. Let D(x,y)=xyD(x, y) = x - y. This quantity behaves as follows under each possible move:

a. (x,y)(y,x)(x, y) \to (y, x) changes D(x,y)D(x, y) to D(x,y)-D(x, y).

b. (x,y)(3x,3y)(x, y) \to (3x, 3y) changes D(x,y)D(x, y) to 3D(x,y)3D(x, y).

c. If y4y \ge 4, move (x,y)(x+4,y4)(x, y) \to (x + 4, y - 4) changes D(x,y)D(x, y) to D(x,y)+8D(x, y) + 8.

d. If y5y \ge 5, move (x,y)(x+3,y5)(x, y) \to (x + 3, y - 5) changes D(x,y)D(x, y) to D(x,y)+8D(x, y) + 8.

We will indicate composition of moves using the symbol \circ so that, for example, (b)\circ(a) is the move (a) followed by move (b), which sends (x,y)(x, y) to (3y,3x)(3y, 3x), and (b)m(b)^m is the mm-fold composition of (b) sending (x,y)(x, y) to (3mx,3my)(3^m x, 3^m y). We introduce the following moves:
(c)=(a)(c)(a): If x4, it sends (x,y) to (x4,y+4). (c') = (a) \circ (c) \circ (a): \text{ If } x \ge 4, \text{ it sends } (x, y) \text{ to } (x - 4, y + 4).
(d)=(a)(d)(a): If x5, it sends (x,y) to (x3,y+5). (d') = (a) \circ (d) \circ (a): \text{ If } x \ge 5, \text{ it sends } (x, y) \text{ to } (x - 3, y + 5).
We also define a move (e) which sends (x,y)(x, y) to (x1,y1)(x - 1, y - 1) if xx and yy are both positive and one of them is at least 44:
(e)={(d)(c)if x1,y4(d)(c)if x4,y1. (e) = \begin{cases} (d') \circ (c) & \text{if } x \ge 1, y \ge 4 \\ (d) \circ (c') & \text{if } x \ge 4, y \ge 1. \end{cases}
Finally, we define moves (f) and (f') as follows:
(f)=(c)(e)4: If x4 and y8, it sends (x,y) to (x,y8). (f) = (c) \circ (e)^4: \text{ If } x \ge 4 \text{ and } y \ge 8, \text{ it sends } (x, y) \text{ to } (x, y - 8).
(f)=(c)(e)4: If x8 and y4, it sends (x,y) to (x8,y). (f') = (c') \circ (e)^4: \text{ If } x \ge 8 \text{ and } y \ge 4, \text{ it sends } (x, y) \text{ to } (x - 8, y).
To prove that each pair (2024,8n)(2024, 8n) with n0n \ge 0 can be reached during the game, we first apply move (b) kk times, where 3ka3^k \ge a, and then move (e) a number of times to get
(1,1)(3,3)(9,9)(3k,3k)(3k1,3k1)(a,a). (1, 1) \to (3, 3) \to (9, 9) \to \dots \to (3^k, 3^k) \to (3^k - 1, 3^k - 1) \to \dots \to (a, a).
This shows that we can get any pair (a,a)(a, a) with a3a \ge 3. In particular, we can get any pair (8n,8n)(8n, 8n) with n1n \ge 1. If 8n2024=82538n \ge 2024 = 8 \cdot 253 we apply move (f)(f') a number of times to reach (2024,8n)(2024, 8n) for any n253n \ge 253. To reach (2024,8n)(2024, 8n) for 0n<2530 \le n < 253, we start with (2024,2024)(2024, 2024) and apply move (f) a suitable number of times. Hence, for any n0n \ge 0 we can reach (2024,8n)(2024, 8n) from (1,1)(1, 1) after a finite number of moves.

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