Several pieces of carpet are laid along a corridor. Pieces cover the entire corridor from end to end without omissions and even overlap one another, so that over some parts of the floor lie several layers of carpet. Prove that you can remove a few pieces, perhaps by taking them out from under others and leaving the rest exactly in the same places they used to be, so that the corridor will still be completely covered and the total length of the pieces left will be less than twice the length corridor.
Four lamps need to be hung over a square ice-rink so that they fully illuminate it. What is the minimum height needed at which to hang the lamps if each lamp illuminates a circle of radius equal to the height at which it hangs?
In a corridor of length 100 m, 20 sections of red carpet are laid out. The combined length of the sections is 1000 m. What is the largest number there can be of distinct stretches of the corridor that are not covered by carpet, given that the sections of carpet are all the same width as the corridor?
A White Rook pursues a black bishop on a board of \(3 \times 1969\) cells (they walk in turn according to the usual rules). How should the rook play to take the bishop? White makes the first move.
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?
A white plane is arbitrarily sprinkled with black ink. Prove that for any positive \(l\) there exists a line segment of length \(l\) with both ends of the same colour.
Izzy wrote a correct equality on the board: \(35 + 10 - 41 = 42 + 12 - 50\), and then subtracted 4 from both parts: \(35 + 10 - 45 = 42 + 12 - 54\). She noticed that on the left hand side of the equation all of the numbers are divisible by 5, and on the right hand side by 6. Then she took 5 outside of the brackets on the left hand side and 6 on the right hand side and got \(5(7 + 2 - 9)4 = 6(7 + 2 - 9)\). Having simplified both sides by a common multiplier, Izzy found that \(5 = 6\). Where did she go wrong?
A board of size \(2005\times2005\) is divided into square cells with a side length of 1 unit. Some board cells are numbered in some order by numbers 1, 2, ... so that from any non-numbered cell there is a numbered cell within a distance of less than 10. Prove that there can be found two cells with a distance between them of less than 150, which are numbered by numbers that differ by more than 23. (The distance between the cells is the distance between their centres.)
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?
Solving the problem: “What is the solution of the expression \(x^{2000} + x^{1999} + x^{1998} + 1000x^{1000} + 1000x^{999} + 1000x^{998} + 2000x^3 + 2000x^2 + 2000x + 3000\) (\(x\) is a real number) if \(x^2 + x + 1 = 0\)?”, Vasya got the answer of 3000. Is Vasya right?