Problems

Age
Difficulty
Found: 116

a) The vertices (corners) in a regular polygon with 10 sides are colored black and white in an alternating fashion (i.e. one vertex is black, the next is white, etc). Two people play the following game. Each player in turn draws a line connecting two vertices of the same color. These lines must not have common vertices (i.e. must not begin or end on the same dot as another line) with the lines already drawn. The winner of the game is the player who made the final move. Which player, the first or the second, would win if the right strategy is used?

b) The same problem, but for a regular polygon with 12 sides.

The edges of a cube are assigned with integer values. For each vertex we look at the numbers corresponding to the three edges coming from this vertex and add them up. In case we get 8 equal results we call such cube “cute”. Are there any “cute” cubes with the following numbers corresponding to the edges:

(a) \(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12\);

(b) \(-6, -5, -4, -3, -2, -1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6\)?

a) A square of area 6 contains three polygons, each of area 3. Prove that among them there are two polygons that have an overlap of area no less than 1.

b) A square of area 5 contains nine polygons of area 1. Prove that among them there are two polygons that have an overlap of area no less than \(\frac{1}{9}\).

The number \(x\) is such a number that exactly one of the four numbers \(a = x - \sqrt{2}\), \(b = x-1/x\), \(c = x + 1/x\), \(d = x^2 + 2\sqrt{2}\) is not an integer. Find all such \(x\).

The length of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is 3.

a) The Scattered Scientist calculated the dispersion of the lengths of the sides of this triangle and found that it equals 2. Was he wrong in the calculations?

b) What is the smallest standard deviation of the sides that a rectangular triangle can have? What are the lengths of its sides, adjacent to the right angle?

James furiously cuts a rectangular sheet of paper with scissors. Every second he cuts a random piece by an unsystematic rectilinear cut into two parts.

a) Find the mathematical expectation of the number of sides of a polygon (made from a piece of paper) that James randomly picks up after an hour of such work.

b) Solve the same problem if at first the piece of paper had the form of an arbitrary polygon.

The upper side of a piece of square paper is white, and the lower one is red. In the square, a point F is randomly chosen. Then the square is bent so that one randomly selected vertex overlaps the point F. Find the mathematical expectation of the number of sides of the red polygon that appears.

40% of adherents of some political party are women. 70% of the adherents of this party are townspeople. At the same time, 60% of the townspeople who support the party are men. Are the events “the adherent of the party is a townsperson” and “the adherent of party is a woman” independent?