There are students in a class, and some pairs of these students are friends. Among any six students, there are two of them that are not friends, and for any pair of students that are not friends there is a student among the remaining four that is friends with both of them. Find the maximum value of .
Problem 1204
Official solution
1. Understanding the problem: We need to find the maximum number of students in a class such that among any six students, there are two who are not friends, and for any pair of students that are not friends, there is a student among the remaining four who is friends with both of them.
2. Example construction: Consider 5 subgraphs . Each subgraph has 5 vertices, and any two vertices in the same subgraph are not connected. Any two vertices in different subgraphs are connected. This construction ensures that each student has at least friends.
3. Claim: Everyone has at least friends.
- Proof of the claim: Let be a vertex. If is friends with all other vertices, the claim is trivially true. Suppose is a vertex that is not friends with . There cannot be 4 vertices that are not friends with both and because, by the problem's condition, for any pair of students that are not friends, there is a student among the remaining four who is friends with both. Therefore, there are at least vertices that are friends with both and . This proves the claim.
4. Degree calculation: For all , we have . Thus, the total number of edges in the graph is:
5. Application of Turan's Theorem: We do not have a 6-clique, hence by Turan's Theorem, the number of edges is bounded by:
6. Combining inequalities:
Simplifying this inequality:
7. Solving the inequality: The inequality holds when . Since must be a positive integer, the maximum value of is 25.
Conclusion: