Problems

Every day, Patrick the dog chews one slipper from the available stock in the house. Strictly with a probability of 0.5 Patrick wants to chew the left slipper, and with a probability of 0.5 – the right one. If the desired slippers are not present, Patrick becomes upset. How many pairs of the same slippers need to be bought, so that with a probability of not less than 0.8 Patrick does not get upset for an entire week (7 days)?

Find the probability that heads will fall an even number of times, in an experiment in which:

a) a symmetrical coin is thrown $n$ times;

b) a coin is thrown $n$ times, for which the probability of getting heads in one throw is $p(0<p<1)$.

In Anchuria, presidential elections are being prepared, in which President Miraflores wants to win. Exactly half of the voters support Miraflores, and the other half support Dick Maloney. Miraflores is also a voter. According to the law, he has the right to divide all of the voters into two constituencies at his own discretion. In each of the districts, the voting is conducted as follows: each voter marks the name of their candidate on the ballot; all ballots are placed in the ballot box. Then one random ballot is chosen from the ballot box, and the one whose name is marked on it will win in this district. The candidate wins the election only if he wins in both districts. If the winner does not appear, the next round of voting is appointed according to the same rules. How should Miraflores divide the electorate in order to maximize the probability of his victory on the first round?

What is the minimum number of $1\times 1$ squares that need to be drawn in order to get an image of a $25\times 25$ square divided into 625 smaller 1x1 squares?

What is the smallest number of cells that can be chosen on a $15\times 15$ board so that a mouse positioned on any cell on the board touches at least two marked cells? (The mouse also touches the cell on which it stands.)

It is known that $AA+A=XYZ$. What is the last digit of the product: $B\times C\times D\times D\times C\times E\times F\times G$ (where different letters denote different digits, identical letters denote identical digits)?

There are 40 identical cords. If you set any cord on fire on one side, it burns, and if you set it alight on the other side, it will not burn. Ahmed arranges the cords in the form of a square (see the figure below, each cord makes up a side of a cell). Then, Helen arranges 12 fuses. Will Ahmed be able to lay out the cords in such a way that Helen will not be able to burn all of them?

The pupils of class 5A had a total of 2015 pencils. One of them lost a box with five pencils, and instead bought a box with 50 pencils. How many pencils do the pupils of class 5A now have?

A box contains 111 red, blue, green, and white marbles. It is known that if we remove 100 marbles from the box, without looking, we will always have removed at least one marble of each colour. What is the minimum number of marbles we need to remove to guarantee that we have removed marbles of 3 different colours?

A box contains 100 red, blue, and white marbles. It is known that if we remove 26 marbles from the box, without looking, we will always have removed at least 10 marbles of one colour. What is the minimum number of marbles we need to remove to guarantee that we have removed 30 marbles of the same colour?