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Combinatorics Difficulty 6.1 National olympiad Find the answer

ABCD\mathrm{ABCD} is an nx\mathrm{n} \mathrm{x} board. We call a diagonal row of cells a positive diagonal if it is parallel to AC. How many coins must be placed on an nxn\mathrm{n} x \mathrm{n} board such that every cell either has a coin or is in the same row, column or positive diagonal as a coin?

## Answer

smallest integer (2n1)/3\geq(2 n-1) / 3

[so 2 m12 \mathrm{~m}-1 for n=3 m1,2 m\mathrm{n}=3 \mathrm{~m}-1,2 \mathrm{~m} for n=3 m,2 m+1\mathrm{n}=3 \mathrm{~m}, 2 \mathrm{~m}+1 for n=3 m+1\mathrm{n}=3 \mathrm{~m}+1 ]

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

There must be at least nk\mathrm{n}-\mathrm{k} rows without a coin and at least nk\mathrm{n}-\mathrm{k} columns without a coin. Let r1\mathrm{r}_{1}, r2,,rnk\mathrm{r}_{2}, \ldots, \mathrm{r}_{\mathrm{n}-\mathrm{k}} be cells in the top row without a coin which are also in a column without a coin. Let r1,c2,c3,,cnk\mathrm{r}_{1}, \mathrm{c}_{2}, \mathrm{c}_{3}, \ldots, \mathrm{c}_{\mathrm{n}-\mathrm{k}} be cells in the first column without a coin which are also in a row without a coin. Each of the 2n2k1ri2 \mathrm{n}-2 \mathrm{k}-1 \mathrm{r}_{\mathrm{i}} and cj\mathrm{c}_{\mathrm{j}} are on a different positive diagonal, so we must have k\mathrm{k} \geq 2n2k12 n-2 k-1 and hence k(2n1)/3k \geq(2 n-1) / 3.

Let (i,j) denote the cell in row i\mathrm{i}, col j\mathrm{j}. For n=3 m1\mathrm{n}=3 \mathrm{~m}-1, put coins in (m,1), (m1,2),(m2,3),(\mathrm{m}-1,2),(m-2,3), \ldots, (1,m)(1, m) and in (2m1,m+1),(2m2,m+2),,(m+1,2m1)(2 m-1, m+1),(2 m-2, m+2), \ldots,(m+1,2 m-1). It is easy to check that this works. For n=3 m\mathrm{n}=3 \mathrm{~m}, put an additional coin in ( 2 m,2 m2 \mathrm{~m}, 2 \mathrm{~m} ), it is easy to check that works. For n=3 m+1\mathrm{n}=3 \mathrm{~m}+1 we can use the same arrangement as for 3m+23 m+2.

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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.