Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Find the answer

1. A competition has n2n \geqslant 2 participants, lasting kk days. Each day, the participants' scores are 1,2,,n1,2, \cdots, n, and all participants' total scores are 26 points. Find all possible pairs (n,k)(n, k).

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

Solution

1. It is easy to know that the total sum of kk days is
k×12n(n+1)=26n. k \times \frac{1}{2} n(n+1)=26 n .

Therefore, k(n+1)=52k(n+1)=52.
Thus, (n,k)=(51,1),(25,2),(12,4)(n, k)=(51,1),(25,2),(12,4), (3,13)(3,13). Only (51,1)(51,1) is impossible to achieve.
For (25,2)(25,2), we have
(26,26,,26)=(1,2,,24,25)+(25,24,,2,1). \begin{array}{l} (26,26, \cdots, 26)=(1,2, \cdots, 24,25) \\ +(25,24, \cdots, 2,1) . \end{array}

For (12,4)(12,4), we have
(26,26,,26)=2(1,2,,11,12)+2(12,11,,2,1). \begin{array}{l} (26,26, \cdots, 26)=2(1,2, \cdots, 11,12) \\ +2(12,11, \cdots, 2,1) . \end{array}

For (3,13)(3,13), we have
(26,26,26)=(1,2,3)+2(2,3,1)+2(3,1,2)+3(1,3,2)+2(3,2,1)+3(2,1,3) \begin{array}{l} (26,26,26)=(1,2,3)+2(2,3,1) \\ +2(3,1,2)+3(1,3,2)+2(3,2,1) \\ +3(2,1,3) \end{array}

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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.