Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 6 / 204 of 400 #1204 of 1964

Problem 1204

National olympiad, first round
Combinatorics Difficulty 6.3 Find the answer

There are nn 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 nn.

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

Official solution

1. Understanding the problem: We need to find the maximum number of students n n 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 A,B,C,D,E A, B, C, D, E . 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 n5 n-5 friends.

3. Claim: Everyone has at least n5 n-5 friends.
- Proof of the claim: Let A A be a vertex. If A A is friends with all other vertices, the claim is trivially true. Suppose B B is a vertex that is not friends with A A . There cannot be 4 vertices that are not friends with both A A and B B 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 n5 n-5 vertices that are friends with both A A and B B . This proves the claim.

4. Degree calculation: For all i=1,2,,n i = 1, 2, \ldots, n , we have deg(vi)n5 \deg(v_i) \geq n-5 . Thus, the total number of edges E |E| in the graph is:
E=deg(vi)2n(n5)2 |E| = \frac{\sum \deg(v_i)}{2} \geq \frac{n(n-5)}{2}

5. Application of Turan's Theorem: We do not have a 6-clique, hence by Turan's Theorem, the number of edges E |E| is bounded by:
E4n210=2n25 |E| \leq \frac{4n^2}{10} = \frac{2n^2}{5}

6. Combining inequalities:
n(n5)22n25 \frac{n(n-5)}{2} \leq \frac{2n^2}{5}
Simplifying this inequality:
n(n5)4n25 n(n-5) \leq \frac{4n^2}{5}
5n(n5)4n2 5n(n-5) \leq 4n^2
5n225n4n2 5n^2 - 25n \leq 4n^2
n225n0 n^2 - 25n \leq 0
n(n25)0 n(n-25) \leq 0

7. Solving the inequality: The inequality n(n25)0 n(n-25) \leq 0 holds when 0n25 0 \leq n \leq 25 . Since n n must be a positive integer, the maximum value of n n is 25.

Conclusion:
25 \boxed{25}

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