Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 6.7 National olympiad Find the answer

You may assign a color to each of the numbers from 1 to 2014, with exactly half being red and the other half blue. Then you examine the number kk of positive integers that can be written as the sum of a red and a blue number. Determine the maximum value of kk that you can achieve.

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

Solution

Let n=2014n=2014. We will prove that the maximum kk is equal to 2n52n-5. The smallest number that can be written as the sum of a red and a blue number is 1+2=31+2=3 and the largest number is (n1)+n=2n1(n-1)+n=2n-1. Therefore, there are at most 2n32n-3 numbers that can be written as the sum of a red and a blue number.
Assume that the numbers can be colored in such a way that there are 2n32n-3 or 2n42n-4 numbers that can be written as the sum of a red and a blue number. There is now at most one number from 3 to 2n12n-1 that cannot be written as such. We will first show that we can assume without loss of generality that this number is at least n+1n+1. We can create a second coloring where a number ii is blue if and only if n+1in+1-i was blue in the first coloring. Then a number mm can be written as the sum of red and blue in the second coloring if and only if 2n+2m2n+2-m could be written as the sum of red and blue in the first coloring. Therefore, if a number less than n+1n+1 could not be written as the sum of red and blue in the first coloring, then in the second coloring, precisely a number greater than 2n+2(n+1)=n+12n+2-(n+1)=n+1 cannot be written as the sum of red and blue.
Thus, we can assume that the numbers from 3 to nn can all be written as the sum of red and blue. Since red and blue are interchangeable, we can also assume without loss of generality that 1 is colored blue. Since 3 can be written as the sum of red and blue and this can only be 3=1+23=1+2, 2 must be red. Now suppose we know that 2 to ll are red, for some ll with 2ln22 \leq l \leq n-2. Then in all possible sums a+b=l+2a+b=l+2 with a,b2a, b \geq 2, both numbers are colored red, but we know that we can write l+2l+2 as the sum of red and blue (since l+2nl+2 \leq n), so it must be 1+(l+1)1+(l+1). Therefore, l+1l+1 is also red. By induction, we see that the numbers from 2 to n1n-1 are all red. That is n2=2012n-2=2012 numbers. But there are only 12n=1007\frac{1}{2}n=1007 red numbers, contradiction.
We conclude that there are at least two numbers from 3 to 2n12n-1 that cannot be written as the sum of a red and a blue number. We will now show that we can color the numbers in such a way that all numbers from 4 to 2n22n-2 can be written as the sum of a red and a blue number, so that the maximum kk is equal to 2n52n-5.
For this, color all even numbers except nn blue and also the number 1. All odd numbers except 1 are colored red, and also the number nn. By adding 1 to an odd number (not equal to 1), we can write all even numbers from 4 to nn as the sum of a red and a blue number. By adding 2 to an odd number (not equal to 1), we can write all odd numbers from 5 to n+1n+1 as the sum of a red and a blue number. By adding n1n-1 to an even number (not equal to nn), we can write all odd numbers from n+1n+1 to 2n32n-3 as the sum of a red and a blue number. By adding nn to an even number (not equal to nn), we can write all even numbers from n+2n+2 to 2n22n-2 as the sum of a red and a blue number. In total, we can thus write all numbers from 4 to 2n22n-2 as the sum of a red and a blue number.
We conclude that the maximum kk is equal to 2n5=40232n-5=4023.

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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.