Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 6.2 National olympiad Prove it

Prove that amongst any 29 natural numbers there are 15 such that sum of them is divisible by 15.

Solution

Amongst any 5 natural numbers there are 3 such that the sum of them is divisible by 3. Amongst any 29 natural numbers we can choose 9 groups with 3 numbers such that the sum of numbers in every group is divisible by 3. In that way we get 9 natural numbers such that all of them are divisible by 3. It is easy to see that amongst any 9 natural numbers there are 5 such that the sum of them is divisible by 5. Since we have 9 numbers, all of them are divisible by 3, there are 5 such that the sum of them is divisible by 15.

## COM4\operatorname{COM} 4.

nn points are given in a plane, no three of them collinear. One observes that no matter how we label the points from 1 to nn, the broken line joining the points 1,2,3,,n1,2,3, \ldots, n (in this order) does not intersect itself.

Find the maximal value of nn.

Solution. Notice that n=4n=4 satisfies the condition. Indeed, for a

concave quadrilateral, this can be checked immediately.

Then, observe that for n5n \geq 5 one can choose four points A,B,C,DA, B, C, D such that ABCDA B C D is a convex quadrilateral. The diagonals ACA C and BDB D intersect at a point, hence labeling A,B,C,DA, B, C, D with 1,2,3,41,2,3,4 we reach a contradiction.

Thus, it is sufficient to prove that from five points we can select four that are vertices of a convex quadrilateral. Consider the convex hull of the five points set. If this is not a triangle we are done. If it is a triangle, then draw the line through the two points inside the triangle. This line meets exactly two sides of the triangle. Let AA be the common vertex of these sides. Then the four remaining points solve the claim.

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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.