Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 5 / 79 of 400 #679 of 1964

Problem 679

AIME late
Number theory Difficulty 5.2 Find the answer

2. There are 9 cards with numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,81,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9. What is the maximum number of these cards that can be laid out in some order in a row so that on any two adjacent cards, one of the numbers is divisible by the other?

A number or a short expression. Spacing, $ signs and \frac vs / are all fine.

Official solution

2. Answer: 8.

Note that it is impossible to arrange all 9 cards in a row as required. This follows from the fact that each of the cards with numbers 5 and 7 can only have one neighbor, the card with the number 1. Therefore, both cards 5 and 7 must be at the ends, and the card with the number 1 must be adjacent to each of them, which is impossible. It is possible to select 8 cards and arrange them in a row according to the requirements of the problem, for example: 9,3,6,2,4,8,1,59,3,6,2,4,8,1,5.

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic, difficulty and ordering added by this site.