Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /350 of 383

Combinatorics Difficulty 9.0 IMO level Prove it IMO

Consider 2018 pairwise crossing circles no three of which are concurrent. These circles subdivide the plane into regions bounded by circular edges that meet at vertices. Notice that there are an even number of vertices on each circle. Given the circle, alternately colour the vertices on that circle red and blue. In doing so for each circle, every vertex is coloured twice once for each of the two circles that cross at that point. If the two colourings agree at a vertex, then it is assigned that colour; otherwise, it becomes yellow. Show that, if some circle contains at least 2061 yellow points, then the vertices of some region are all yellow.

Solutions — 2

Solution 1

Letting n=2018n=2018, we will show that, if every region has at least one non-yellow vertex, then every circle contains at most n+n22n+\lfloor\sqrt{n-2}\rfloor-2 yellow points. In the case at hand, the latter equals 2018+442=20602018+44-2=2060, contradicting the hypothesis.

Consider the natural geometric graph GG associated with the configuration of nn circles. Fix any circle CC in the configuration, let kk be the number of yellow points on CC, and find a suitable lower bound for the total number of yellow vertices of GG in terms of kk and nn. It turns out that kk is even, and GG has at least
k+2(k/22)+2(nk/212)=k22(n2)k+(n2)(n1) \begin{equation*} k+2\binom{k / 2}{2}+2\binom{n-k / 2-1}{2}=\frac{k^{2}}{2}-(n-2) k+(n-2)(n-1) \tag{*} \end{equation*}
yellow vertices. The proof hinges on the two lemmata below.

Lemma 1. Let two circles in the configuration cross at xx and yy. Then xx and yy are either both yellow or both non-yellow.

Proof. This is because the numbers of interior vertices on the four arcs xx and yy determine on the two circles have like parities.
In particular, each circle in the configuration contains an even number of yellow vertices.

Lemma 2. If x y\text{x y}, y z\text{y z}, and z x\text{z x} are circular arcs of three pairwise distinct circles in the configuration, then the number of yellow vertices in the set {x,y,z}\{x, y, z\} is odd.

Proof. Let C1,C2,C3C_{1}, C_{2}, C_{3} be the three circles under consideration. Assume, without loss of generality, that C2C_{2} and C3C_{3} cross at xx, C3C_{3} and C1C_{1} cross at yy, and C1C_{1} and C2C_{2} cross at zz. Let k1k_{1}, k2,k3k_{2}, k_{3} be the numbers of interior vertices on the three circular arcs under consideration. Since each circle in the configuration, different from the CiC_{i}, crosses the cycle x y y z z x\text{x y y z z x} at an even number of points (recall that no three circles are concurrent), and self-crossings are counted twice, the sum k1+k2+k3k_{1}+k_{2}+k_{3} is even.

Let Z1Z_{1} be the colour zz gets from C1C_{1} and define the other colours similarly. By the preceding, the number of bichromatic pairs in the list (Z1,Y1),(X2,Z2),(Y3,X3)\left(Z_{1}, Y_{1}\right),\left(X_{2}, Z_{2}\right),\left(Y_{3}, X_{3}\right) is odd. Since the total number of colour changes in a cycle Z1Y1Y3X3X2Z2Z1Z_{1}-Y_{1}-Y_{3}-X_{3}-X_{2}-Z_{2}-Z_{1} is even, the number of bichromatic pairs in the list (X2,X3),(Y1,Y3),(Z1,Z2)\left(X_{2}, X_{3}\right),\left(Y_{1}, Y_{3}\right),\left(Z_{1}, Z_{2}\right) is odd, and the lemma follows.

We are now in a position to prove that (*) bounds the total number of yellow vertices from below. Refer to Lemma 1 to infer that the kk yellow vertices on CC pair off to form the pairs of points where CC is crossed by k/2k / 2 circles in the configuration. By Lemma 2, these circles cross pairwise to account for another 2(k/22)2\binom{k / 2}{2} yellow vertices. Finally, the remaining nk/21n-k / 2-1 circles in the configuration cross CC at non-yellow vertices, by Lemma 1, and Lemma 2 applies again to show that these circles cross pairwise to account for yet another 2(nk/212)2\binom{n-k / 2-1}{2} yellow vertices. Consequently, there are at least (*) yellow vertices.

Next, notice that GG is a plane graph on n(n1)n(n-1) degree 4 vertices, having exactly 2n(n1)2 n(n-1) edges and exactly n(n1)+2n(n-1)+2 faces (regions), the outer face inclusive (by Euler's formula for planar graphs).

Lemma 3. Each face of GG has equally many red and blue vertices. In particular, each face has an even number of non-yellow vertices.

Proof. Trace the boundary of a face once in circular order, and consider the colours each vertex is assigned in the colouring of the two circles that cross at that vertex, to infer that colours of non-yellow vertices alternate.

Consequently, if each region has at least one non-yellow vertex, then it has at least two such. Since each vertex of GG has degree 4, consideration of vertex-face incidences shows that GG has at least n(n1)/2+1n(n-1) / 2+1 non-yellow vertices, and hence at most n(n1)/21n(n-1) / 2-1 yellow vertices. (In fact, Lemma 3 shows that there are at least n(n1)/4+1/2n(n-1) / 4+1 / 2 red, respectively blue, vertices.)

Finally, recall the lower bound (*) for the total number of yellow vertices in GG, to write n(n1)/21k2/2(n2)k+(n2)(n1)n(n-1) / 2-1 \geqslant k^{2} / 2-(n-2) k+(n-2)(n-1), and conclude that kn+n22k \leqslant n+\lfloor\sqrt{n-2}\rfloor-2, as claimed in the first paragraph.

Solution 2

The first two lemmata in Solution 1 show that the circles in the configuration split into two classes: Consider any circle CC along with all circles that cross CC at yellow points to form one class; the remaining circles then form the other class. Lemma 2 shows that any pair of circles in the same class cross at yellow points; otherwise, they cross at non-yellow points.

Call the circles from the two classes white and black, respectively. Call a region yellow if its vertices are all yellow. Let ww and bb be the numbers of white and black circles, respectively; clearly, w+b=nw+b=n. Assume that wbw \geqslant b, and that there is no yellow region. Clearly, b1b \geqslant 1, otherwise each region is yellow. The white circles subdivide the plane into w(w1)+2w(w-1)+2 larger regions - call them white. The white regions (or rather their boundaries) subdivide each black circle into black arcs. Since there are no yellow regions, each white region contains at least one black arc.

Consider any white region; let it contain t1t \geqslant 1 black arcs. We claim that the number of points at which these tt arcs\operatorname{arcs} cross does not exceed t-1. To prove this, consider a multigraph whose vertices are these black arcs, two vertices being joined by an edge for each point at which the corresponding arcs cross. If this graph had more than t-1edges,itwouldcontainacycle,sinceithas edges, it would contain a cycle, since it has t$ vertices; this cycle would correspond to a closed contour formed by black sub-arcs, lying inside the region under consideration. This contour would, in turn, define at least one yellow region, which is impossible.

Let tit_{i} be the number of black arcs inside the ithi^{\text{th}} white region. The total number of black arcs is iti=2wb\sum_{i} t_{i}=2 w b, and they cross at 2(b2)=b(b1)2\binom{b}{2}=b(b-1) points. By the preceding,
b(b1)i=1w2w+2(ti1)=i=1w2w+2ti(w2w+2)=2wb(w2w+2) b(b-1) \leqslant \sum_{i=1}^{w^{2}-w+2}\left(t_{i}-1\right)=\sum_{i=1}^{w^{2}-w+2} t_{i}-\left(w^{2}-w+2\right)=2 w b-\left(w^{2}-w+2\right)
or, equivalently, (wb)2w+b2=n2(w-b)^{2} \leqslant w+b-2=n-2, which is the case if and only if wbn2w-b \leqslant\lfloor\sqrt{n-2}\rfloor. Consequently, bw(n+n2)/2b \leqslant w \leqslant(n+\lfloor\sqrt{n-2}\rfloor) / 2, so there are at most 2(w1)n+n222(w-1) \leqslant n+\lfloor\sqrt{n-2}\rfloor-2 yellow vertices on each circle - a contradiction.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.