Problem:
The number or the number is assigned to each vertex of a cube. Then each face is given the product of its four vertices. What are the possible totals for the resulting numbers?
Problem:
The number or the number is assigned to each vertex of a cube. Then each face is given the product of its four vertices. What are the possible totals for the resulting numbers?
Solution:
If every vertex is , we get and that is clearly the highest possible total. The lowest possible total cannot be lower than , but we cannot even achieve that because if all the vertices are , then all the faces are .
If we change a vertex, then we also change three faces. If the vertex and the three faces are all initially the same, then we make a change of . If three are of one kind and one the opposite, then we make a change of . If two are of one kind and two the opposite, then we make no change. Thus any sequence of changes must take us to for some integer . But we have already shown that the total is greater than and at most , so the only possibilities are and .
We show that is not possible. If more than vertices are , then the vertex total is at most , there are only faces, so the total is less than . If all vertices are , then the total is . If all but one vertex is , then the total is . So the only possibility for is just two vertices . But however we choose any two vertices, there is always a face containing only one of them, so at least one face is , so the face total is at most and the vertex total is , so the total is less than . The other totals are possible, for example:
: all vertices
: one vertex , rest
: three vertices of one face , rest
: all vertices
: all vertices but one
: two opposite corners , rest