Let be an integer. Suppose we are given points in a plane such that no three of them are collinear. The points are to be labelled in some order. We then consider the angles , . We measure each angle in the way that gives the smallest positive value (i.e. between and ). Prove that there exists an ordering of the given points such that the resulting angles can be separated into two groups with the sum of one group of angles equal to the sum of the other group. Comment. The first three solutions all use the same construction involving a line separating the points into groups of points each, but give different proofs that this construction works. Although Solution 1 is very short, the Problem Selection Committee does not believe any of the solutions is easy to find and thus rates this as a problem of medium difficulty.
Solution
Let be a line separating the points into two groups ( and ) with points in each. Label the points so that . We claim that this labelling works. Take a line . (a) Rotate around until it passes through ; the rotation is performed in a direction such that is never parallel to . (b) Then rotate the new around until it passes through in a similar manner. (c) Perform more such steps, after which returns to its initial position. The total (directed) rotation angle of is clearly a multiple of . On the other hand, was never parallel to , which is possible only if . Now it remains to partition all the angles into those where is rotated anticlockwise, and the others.
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