Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:

Let PP be a graph with one vertex vnv_{n} for each positive integer nn. If a<ba < b, then an edge connects vertices vav_{a} and vbv_{b} if and only if ba\frac{b}{a} is a prime number. What is the chromatic number of PP? Prove your answer.

Solution

Solution:

At least two colors are needed in a good coloring of PP. We show that two is sufficient. Write the positive integer nn as p1e1p2e2pkekp_{1}^{e_{1}} p_{2}^{e_{2}} \ldots p_{k}^{e_{k}}, for distinct primes p1,p2,,pkp_{1}, p_{2}, \ldots, p_{k}, and let f(n)=e1+e2++ekf(n) = e_{1} + e_{2} + \ldots + e_{k}. Notice that if vav_{a} and vbv_{b} are connected, then f(a)f(a) and f(b)f(b) have opposite parity. So, if we color vnv_{n} red if f(n)f(n) is odd and blue otherwise, the two-coloring is good.

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