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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.7 AIME, harder Prove it Taiwan

There are 220132^{2013} points on a circle, arbitrarily numbered 1,2,,220131, 2, \dots, 2^{2013}, with each number assigned to exactly one point. Prove that one can draw 500 pairwise disjoint chords among these points such that the two endpoints of each chord have the same sum.

Solution

The proof of this problem is based on the following fact.

Lemma. In a graph GG, let the degree of vertex vv be dvd_v. Then GG contains an independent set SS consisting of some vertices satisfying Sf(G)|S| \ge f(G), where
f(G)=vG1dv+1. f(G) = \sum_{v \in G} \frac{1}{d_v + 1}.
Proof. We proceed by induction on the number of vertices G=n|G| = n of GG. The base case n=1n=1 clearly holds. In the inductive step, take a vertex v0v_0 in GG with the minimum degree dd. Delete v0v_0 together with all its neighbors v1,,vdv_1, \dots, v_d, as well as all edges connected to these vertices, from the graph GG, and call the resulting graph GG'. By the induction hypothesis, GG' contains an independent set of vertices SS' satisfying Sf(G)|S'| \ge f(G'). Since none of the vertices in SS' are neighbors of v0v_0, S=S{v0}S = S' \cup \{v_0\} is an independent set of vertices in GG.

Let the degree of vertex vv in GG' be dvd_v'. Clearly dvdvd_v' \le d_v holds for every vertex vv, and by the choice of v0v_0, dv0dd_{v_0} \ge d holds for all i=0,1,,di=0, 1, \dots, d. Thus we have
f(G)=vG1dv+1vG1dv+1=f(G)i=0d1dvi+1f(G)d+1d+1=f(G)1. \begin{aligned} f(G') &= \sum_{v \in G'} \frac{1}{d_v' + 1} \ge \sum_{v \in G'} \frac{1}{d_v + 1} = f(G) - \sum_{i=0}^{d} \frac{1}{d_{v_i} + 1} \\ &\ge f(G) - \frac{d+1}{d+1} = f(G) - 1. \end{aligned}
Hence S=S+1f(G)+1f(G)|S| = |S'| + 1 \ge f(G') + 1 \ge f(G). Therefore the lemma holds by mathematical induction. \square

We return to the proof of the problem. For simplicity, let n=22012n = 2^{2012}, and draw all the chords determined by the 2n2n points on the circle. Color each chord according to the sum of the numbers at its two endpoints, which is one of 3,4,,4n13, 4, \dots, 4n-1 (think of each of 3,4,,4n13, 4, \dots, 4n-1 as a color). Two different chords sharing a common endpoint must have different colors. For each color cc, consider the following graph GcG_c: its vertices are all the chords of color cc; two chords are neighbors if and only if they intersect. Let f(Gc)f(G_c) be the quantity defined by the formula in the lemma above.

Each chord \ell divides the circle into two arcs, at least one of which contains m()n1m(\ell) \le n-1 of the given points. (Special case: if the two endpoints of \ell are adjacent, then m()=0m(\ell) = 0.) For each i=0,1,,n2i = 0, 1, \dots, n-2, there are 2n2n chords \ell satisfying m()=im(\ell) = i. Such a chord has degree at most ii in the graph of its color, for the reason that if A1,A2,,AiA_1, A_2, \dots, A_i are all the points on the arc determined by the chord \ell with m()=im(\ell) = i and color cc, then each point AjA_j is the endpoint of at most one chord of color cc, for j=1,2,,ij = 1, 2, \dots, i; hence at most ii chords of color cc intersect \ell.

From this it follows that for each i=0,1,,n2i = 0, 1, \dots, n-2, the 2n2n chords \ell satisfying m()=im(\ell) = i contribute at least 2ni+1\frac{2n}{i+1} to the sum cf(Gc)\sum_c f(G_c). Summing ii from 0,1,0, 1, \dots up to n2n-2 gives
cf(Gc)2ni=1n11i. \sum_c f(G_c) \ge 2n \sum_{i=1}^{n-1} \frac{1}{i}.
Since there are a total of 4n34n-3 colors, taking the average shows that there is at least one color cc satisfying
f(Gc)2n4n3i=1n11i>12i=1n11i. f(G_c) \ge \frac{2n}{4n-3} \sum_{i=1}^{n-1} \frac{1}{i} > \frac{1}{2} \sum_{i=1}^{n-1} \frac{1}{i}.
By the lemma above, there exist at least 12i=1n11i\frac{1}{2} \sum_{i=1}^{n-1} \frac{1}{i} pairwise disjoint chords of color cc; the sums of the numbers at the two endpoints of these chords are, of course, all equal to cc. Finally, it only remains to verify that when n=22012n = 2^{2012}, 12i=1n11i500\frac{1}{2} \sum_{i=1}^{n-1} \frac{1}{i} \ge 500. We have
i=1n11i>i=120001i=1+k=12000i=2k1+12k1i>1+k=120002k12k=1001>1000. \sum_{i=1}^{n-1} \frac{1}{i} > \sum_{i=1}^{2000} \frac{1}{i} = 1 + \sum_{k=1}^{2000} \sum_{i=2^{k-1}+1}^{2^k} \frac{1}{i} > 1 + \sum_{k=1}^{2000} \frac{2^{k-1}}{2^k} = 1001 > 1000.
This proves the problem.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from zh; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.