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Combinatorics Difficulty 6.4 National olympiad Prove it Ukraine

There are several gentlemen in the club.
Every two are either friends, or enemies. It is known that each of the gentlemen has exactly 44 enemies. In addition, for each of them, the enemy of his friend is his enemy. How many gentlemen can be present at the club?

Solution

Note that the condition implies that each of the gentlemen has equal number of friends. Let nn denote the number of gentlemen in the club. Each of them has exactly 44 enemies, therefore exactly n5n-5 friends.

Consider a single gentleman A1A_1. Let B1,B2,B3,B4B_1, B_2, B_3, B_4 denote his enemies. Since each friend of A1A_1 is also an enemy of B1B_1, then A1A_1 has no more than three friends, since B1B_1 has exactly 44 enemies and no more than that. Consider the following cases.

Case 1. A1A_1 has 33 friends. Let us denote them by A2,A3,A4A_2, A_3, A_4. In this case, there are total 88 gentlemen in the club, and this situation is possible when each two of gentlemen A1,A2,A3,A4A_1, A_2, A_3, A_4 are friends, each two of gentlemen B1,B2,B3,B4B_1, B_2, B_3, B_4 are also friends, and each pair AiA_i and BjB_j are enemies.

A2,A3A_2, A_3 already have 44 enemies, which means they must be friends with each other. Consider gentleman B1B_1. Without loss of generality, we can state that his friends are B2,B3B_2, B_3. Analogous to the above, we show that B2,B3B_2, B_3 are friends. Then, B4B_4 does not have any friends. Which makes this case impossible.

Case 2. A1A_1 has 22 friends. Let us denote them by A2,A3A_2, A_3. Then the club has the total of 77 gentlemen. Notice that each of the friends of A1A_1 is the enemy of BjB_j. Then each of the gentlemen ...

Case 3. A1A_1 has 11 friend. Then the total number of gentlemen in the club is 66. This case is possible. For example, let the pairs (A1,A2)(A_1, A_2), (B1,B2)(B_1, B_2) and (C1,C2)(C_1, C_2) be pairs of friends. All the rest are enemies to each other. It is easy to see that this example satisfies the condition.

Case 4. A1A_1 has no friends. Then 55 gentlemen, all of which are the enemies of one another, satisfy the condition of the problem.

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