Olympiad Maths Prep

Track / Stage 6 / 368 of 400 #1368 of 2000

Problem 1368

National olympiad, first round
Number theory Difficulty 6.9 Find the answer

9.48 A pile of stones has a total weight of 100 kilograms, with each stone weighing no more than 2 kilograms. By taking some of these stones in various ways and calculating the difference between the sum of their weights and 10 kilograms. Among all these differences, the minimum absolute value is denoted as dd. Among all piles of stones that meet the above conditions, find the maximum value of dd.

Official solution

[Solution] Take any pile of stones that satisfies the conditions of the problem, and let their weights be x1,x2x_{1}, x_{2}, ,xn\cdots, x_{n}, without loss of generality, assume x1x2xnx_{1} \geqslant x_{2} \geqslant \cdots \geqslant x_{n}. According to the definition of dd, there exists a natural number kk such that
x1+x2++xk10+d and x1+x2++xk110dx_{1}+x_{2}+\cdots+x_{k} \geqslant 10+d \quad \text { and } x_{1}+x_{2}+\cdots+x_{k-1} \leqslant 10-d \text {. }

From this, we can deduce that x1x2xk2dx_{1} \geqslant x_{2} \geqslant \cdots \geqslant x_{k} \geqslant 2 d. Also, 0505. Therefore, we have
10dx1+x2+x3+x4+x510d,10 d \leqslant x_{1}+x_{2}+x_{3}+x_{4}+x_{5} \leqslant 10-d,

which implies d1011d \leqslant \frac{10}{11}.
Furthermore, taking 55 stones each weighing 1011\frac{10}{11} kilograms, it is easy to see that in this case d=1011d=\frac{10}{11}. Therefore, the maximum value of dd is 1011\frac{10}{11}.

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