An abstract artist took a wooden \(5\times 5\times 5\) cube and divided each face into unit squares. He painted each square in one of three colours – black, white, and red – so that there were no horizontally or vertically adjacent squares of the same colour. What is the smallest possible number of squares the artist could have painted black following this rule? Unit squares which share a side are considered adjacent both when the squares lie on the same face and when they lie on adjacent faces.
The numbers \(1, 2, 3, \dots , 99\) are written onto 99 blank cards in order. The cards are then shuffled and then spread in a row face down. The numbers \(1, 2, 3, \dots, 99\) are once more written onto in the blank side of the cards in order. For each card the numbers written on it are then added together. The 99 resulting summations are then multiplied together. Prove that the result will be an even number.
On an island there are 1,234 residents, each of whom is either a knight (who always tells the truth) or a liar (who always lies). One day, all of the inhabitants of the island were broken up into pairs, and each one said: “He is a knight!" or “He is a liar!" about his partner. Could it eventually turn out to be that the number of “He is a knight!" and “He is a liar!" phrases is the same?
Two classes with the same number of students took a test. Having checked the test, the strict teacher Mr Jones said that he gave out 13 more twos than other marks (where the marks range from 2 to 5 and 5 is the highest). Was Mr Jones right?
Are the sum and product odd or even for:
a) two even numbers?
b) two odd numbers?
c) an odd and an even number?
Petya and Misha play such a game. Petya takes in each hand a coin: one – 10 pence, and the other – 15. After that, the contents of the left hand are multiplied by 4, 10, 12 or 26, and the contents of the right hand – by 7, 13, 21 or 35. Then Petya adds the two results and tells Misha the result. Can Misha, knowing this result, determine which hand – the right or left – contains the 10 pence coin?
a) A 1 or a 0 is placed on each vertex of a cube. The sum of the 4 adjacent vertices is written on each face of the cube. Is it possible for each of the numbers written on the faces to be different?
b) The same question, but if 1 and \(-1\) are used instead.
Is it possible to fill a \(5 \times 5\) board with \(1 \times 2\) dominoes?
a) An axisymmetric convex 101-gon is given. Prove that its axis of symmetry passes through one of its vertices.
b) What can be said about the case of a decagon?
In a city, there are 15 telephones. Can I connect them with wires so that each phone is connected exactly with five others?