Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 4 / 272 of 340 #532 of 1964

Problem 532

AMC 12 late, AIME early
Combinatorics Difficulty 5.0 Find the answer

51. (MON 3) Let f1=(a1,a2,,an),n>2f_{1}=\left(a_{1}, a_{2}, \ldots, a_{n}\right), n>2, be a sequence of integers. From f1f_{1} one constructs a sequence fkf_{k} of sequences as follows: if fk=f_{k}= (c1,c2,,cn)\left(c_{1}, c_{2}, \ldots, c_{n}\right), then fk+1=(ci1,ci2,ci2+1,ci4+1,,ci2+1)f_{k+1}=\left(c_{i_{1}}, c_{i_{2}}, c_{i_{2}}+1, c_{i_{4}}+1, \ldots, c_{i_{2}}+1\right), where (ci1,ci2,,ci2)\left(c_{i_{1}}, c_{i_{2}}, \ldots, c_{i_{2}}\right) is a permutation of (c1,c2,,cn)\left(c_{1}, c_{2}, \ldots, c_{n}\right). Give a necessary and sufficient condition for f1f_{1} under which it is possible for fkf_{k} to be a constant sequence (b1,b2,,bn),b1=b2==bm\left(b_{1}, b_{2}, \ldots, b_{n}\right), b_{1}=b_{2}=\cdots=b_{m}, for some kk.

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Official solution

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