Problems

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Found: 211

Seven coins are arranged in a circle. It is known that some four of them, lying in succession, are fake and that every counterfeit coin is lighter than a real one. Explain how to find two counterfeit coins from one weighing on scales without any weights. (All counterfeit coins weigh the same.)

There are three groups of stones: in the first – 10, in the second – 15, in the third – 20. During one turn, you are allowed to split any pile into two smaller ones; the one who cannot make a move loses.

Two players take turns to put rooks on a chessboard so that the rooks cannot capture each other. The player who cannot make a move loses.

On a board there are written 10 units and 10 deuces. During a game, one is allowed to erase any two numbers and, if they are the same, write a deuce, and if they are different then they can write a one. If the last digit left on the board is a unit, then the first player won, if it is a deuce then the second player wins.

Two players in turn put coins on a round table, in such a way that they do not overlap. The player who can not make a move loses.

An \(8 \times 8\) square is painted in two colours. You can repaint any \(1 \times 3\) rectangle in its predominant colour. Prove that such operations can make the whole square monochrome.

Some person \(A\) thought of a number from 1 to 15. Some person \(B\) asks some questions to which you can answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Can \(B\) guess the number by asking a) 4 questions; b) 3 questions.

Two grandmasters in turn put rooks on a chessboard (one turn – one rook) so that they cannot capture each other. The person who cannot put a rook on the chessboard loses. Who will win with the game – the first or second grandmaster?

100 fare evaders want to take a train, consisting of 12 coaches, from the first to the 76th station. They know that at the first station two ticket inspectors will board two coaches. After the 4th station, in the time between each station, one of the ticket inspectors will cross to a neighbouring coach. The ticket inspectors take turns to do this. A fare evader can see a ticket inspector only if the ticket inspector is in the next coach or the next but one coach. At each station each fare evader has time to run along the platform the length of no more than three coaches – for example at a station a fare evader in the 7th coach can run to any coach between the 4th and 10th inclusive and board it. What is the largest number of fare evaders that can travel their entire journey without ever ending up in the same coach as one of the ticket inspectors, no matter how the ticket inspectors choose to move? The fare evaders have no information about the ticket inspectors beyond that which is given here, and they agree their strategy before boarding.

Two people play the following game. Each player in turn rubs out 9 numbers (at his choice) from the sequence \(1, 2, \dots , 100, 101\). After eleven such deletions, 2 numbers will remain. The first player is awarded so many points, as is the difference between these remaining numbers. Prove that the first player can always score at least 55 points, no matter how played the second.