Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.8 AIME, harder Find the answer

Bogdanov I.I.

In the cells of a 100×100100 \times 100 square, the numbers 1,2,,100001,2, \ldots, 10000 are placed, each exactly once; at the same time, numbers differing by 1 are placed in cells that share a side. After this, the distances between the centers of each pair of cells, the numbers in which differ by exactly 5000, were calculated. Let SS be the minimum of these distances. What is the largest value that SS can take?

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

We will number the rows (from bottom to top) and columns (from left to right) of the square with numbers from 1 to 100; we will denote a cell by a pair of the numbers of its row and column. We will call the distance between cells the distance between their centers. Cells will be called paired if the numbers in them differ by 5000. Note that the distance from the cell (50,50)(50,50) to any other cell (in particular, to a paired one) does not exceed 502+502=502\sqrt{50^{2}+50^{2}}=50 \sqrt{2}. Therefore, the minimum distance between paired cells also does not exceed 50250 \sqrt{2}. It remains to provide an example where this minimum is achieved.

We will divide our square into four 50×5050 \times 50 squares. We will place the numbers from 1 to 2500 according to the rules in the lower left square so that the number 1 is in the cell (1,1)(1,1), and the number 2500 is in the cell (50,1)(50,1) (this is possible; for example, the first 50 numbers in the first column, the next 50 in the second column, and so on). Next, if the number a[1,2500]a \in [1,2500] is in the cell (i,k)(i, k), then we will place the numbers a+2500a+2500, a+5000a+5000, and a+7500a+7500 respectively in the cells (k+50,i)(k+50, i), (k+50,i+50)(k+50, i+50), and (51i,101k)(51-i, 101-k). It is easy to see that the numbers are still arranged according to the rules (for adjacent numbers in one square, this is obvious; for numbers 2500-2501, 5000-5001, and 7500-7501, it is verified directly).

It remains to check that the distances between paired cells are not less than 50250 \sqrt{2}. Consider the segment between any paired cells. The sum of its horizontal and vertical projections is either (50+ki)+(50+ik)=100(50+k-i)+(50+i-k)=100 or (k+5051+i)+(101ki)=100(k+50-51+i)+(101-k-i)=100, that is, it is always 100. Therefore, the square of the length of this segment is x2+(100x)2=2(x50)2+5000>5000=(502)2x^{2}+(100-x)^{2}=2(x-50)^{2}+5000 > 5000 = (50 \sqrt{2})^{2}, which is what we needed.

Below is an example of a similar arrangement in an 8×88 \times 8 square.

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Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.