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Algebra Difficulty 6.8 National olympiad Prove it Estonia

Find all integers n3n \ge 3 such that one can write a number (not necessarily an integer) into each vertex of a regular nn-gon in such a way that both following conditions are met:
(1) Whenever three consecutive vertices of the nn-gon, taken clockwise, contain numbers x,yx, y and zz, respectively, the equality x=yzx = |y - z| holds;
(2) The sum of the numbers in all vertices of the nn-gon is 1.

Solution

Let the vertices of an nn-gon A0A1An1A_0A_1\dots A_{n-1} be labeled with numbers satisfying the conditions. Let aa be the least among these numbers. W.l.o.g., assume that A0A_0 contains aa and the indices of vertices are increasing counterclockwise. Let bb and cc be the numbers at vertices An1A_{n-1} and An2A_{n-2}, respectively (Fig. 8). By condition (1), a=bc0a = |b-c| \ge 0. By the choice of aa, we must have bab \ge a, whence by condition (1), A1A_1 contains bab-a. As baab-a \ge a by the choice of aa, the condition (1) also implies that A2A_2 contains b2ab-2a. Hence A3A_3 contains (ba)(b2a)=a(b-a) - (b-2a) = a by condition (1) and non-negativity of aa. Since the vertices can be renumerated without changing the direction in such a way that A3A_3 becomes A0A_0, we can conclude that A6A_6 also contains aa. Similarly, every third vertex contains aa.

If the number nn of vertices is not divisible by 3 then either An1A_{n-1} or A1A_1 must contain aa and, as we can repeat this argument, also An2A_{n-2} or A2A_2, respectively, contains aa. Thus three consecutive vertices contain aa. Applying the condition (1) to these three vertices, we obtain a=aa=0a = |a-a| = 0. But 0 being in two consecutive vertices implies that 0 is in all vertices. Then the sum of all labels is 0, contradicting the condition (2).

This shows that nn must be divisible by 3. Let n=3kn = 3k where kk is a positive integer. For every 3k3k-gon, the conditions of the problem can be satisfied by writing 0 into every third vertex and 12k\frac{1}{2k} into all other vertices (Fig. 9 depicts the situation for k=4k=4).

Figure 1
Figure 2

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