Problems

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A ream of squared paper is shaded in two colours. Prove that there are two horizontal and two vertical lines, the points of intersection of which are shaded in the same colour.

There are several squares on a rectangular sheet of chequered paper of size \(m \times n\) cells, the sides of which run along the vertical and horizontal lines of the paper. It is known that no two squares coincide and no square contains another square within itself. What is the largest number of such squares?

Inside a square with side 1 there are several circles, the sum of the radii of which is 0.51. Prove that there is a line that is parallel to one side of the square and that intersects at least 2 circles.

A teacher filled the squares of a chequered table with \(5\times5\) different integers and gave one copy of it to Janine and one to Zahara. Janine selects the largest number in the table, then she deletes the row and column containing this number, and then she selects the largest number of the remaining integers, then she deletes the row and column containing this number, etc. Zahara performs similar operations, each time choosing the smallest numbers. Can the teacher fill up the table in such a way that the sum of the five numbers chosen by Zahara is greater than the sum of the five numbers chosen by Janine?

The surface of a \(3\times 3\times 3\) Rubik’s Cube contains \(54\) squares. What is the maximum number of squares we can mark so that no marked squares share at least one vertex?

Make sure you show that both (a) you can achieve this maximum and (b) that you can’t do better than this maximum.

Is it possible to place 12 identical coins along the edges of a square box so that touching each edge there were exactly: a) 2 coins, b) 3 coins, c) 4 coins, d) 5 coins, e) 6 coins, f) 7 coins.

You are allowed to place coins on top of one another. In the cases where it is possible, draw how this could be done. In the other cases, prove that doing so is impossible.

The centres of all unit squares are marked in a \(10 \times 10\) chequered box (100 points in total). What is the smallest number of lines, that are not parallel to the sides of the square, that are needed to be drawn to erase all of the marked points?

Some squares on a chess board contain a chess piece. It is known that each row contains at least one chess piece, but that different rows all have different numbers of pieces. Prove that it is always possible to mark 8 pieces so that each row and each column of the board contains exactly one marked piece.