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Combinatorics Difficulty 4.9 AIME Prove it Saudi Arabia

The shape of a military base is an equilateral triangle of side 1010 kilometers. Security constraints make cellular phone communication possible only within 2.52.5 kilometers. Each of 1717 soldiers patrols the base randomly and tries to contact all others. Prove that at each moment at least two soldiers can communicate.

Solution

Divide any side of the equilateral triangle into four equal segments as follows. Then construct through the interior points to the sides parallel lines to the equilateral triangle.

Figure 1

In this way we get a net of the military base consisting in 1616 equilateral triangles of side 2.52.5 kilometers each. Since there are 1717 soldiers, according to the Pigeonhole Principle, at each moment at least two of them are in a triangle of the previous net, hence they can communicate.

Figure 1

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