Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 6.5 National olympiad Prove it Romania

Consider the plane partitioned in unit squares. The interior of each square is coloured in either red or black (the sides of the squares are not considered to be coloured). Prove that given any positive integer α\alpha there exists an equilateral triangle of integer area AαA \ge \alpha, having monochromatic vertices.
Radu Gologan

Solution

Like usually in such situations, there is some doubt on the colouring of the separating lines. One idea would be for a unit square to be considered to be made of its interior, together with its left and lower sides, but less its north-west and south-east corners. This establishes a partition of the plane, given by
(a,b)Z2{(x,y);ax<a+1, by<b+1}. \bigcup_{(a,b) \in \mathbb{Z}^2} \{(x,y); a \le x < a+1,\ b \le y < b+1\}.

Another idea would be not to colour at all the sides of the unit squares – this has been chosen for the problem at hand. Moreover, this introduces the slight extra difficulty in avoiding the uncoloured points of the plane.

The key to the proof is the well-known configuration that warrants the existence of an equilateral monochromatic triangle in the bichromatic plane. Choose a value \ell for the side of an equilateral triangle of integer area α\alpha, hence =4α3\ell = \sqrt{\frac{4\alpha}{\sqrt{3}}}. Let γ\gamma be the circle of radius \ell and center some point AA coloured c1c_1, and Γ\Gamma the circle of same center and radius 3\ell\sqrt{3}. The meeting points of circles γ\gamma and Γ\Gamma with the sides of the unit squares in the plane are obviously finitely many, and these points must be avoided since being uncoloured.

If all points of γ\gamma (except at most a finite number of them) are coloured c2c_2, then there will exist an equilateral triangle whose vertices bear this colour, and of area 3α3\alpha. Otherwise, let BγB \in \gamma be coloured c1c_1, and consider the regular hexagon BCDEFGBCDEFG inscribed in γ\gamma. Its vertices must bear colours Cc2C \to c_2, Gc2G \to c_2, Ec1E \to c_1, Dc2D \to c_2, Fc2F \to c_2, otherwise an equilateral monochromatic triangle of area α\alpha or 3α3\alpha is made. Let now H=BCDEH = BC \cap DE; clearly HΓH \in \Gamma. If HH is coloured c2c_2, then CDH\triangle CDH is monochromatic c2c_2 and has area α\alpha; if HH is coloured c1c_1, then BEH\triangle BEH is monochromatic c1c_1 and has area 4α4\alpha.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.