Problems

Age
Difficulty
Found: 1936

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.

  • Eight schoolchildren solved \(8\) tasks. It turned out that \(5\) schoolchildren solved each problem. Prove that there are two schoolchildren, who solved every problem at least once.

  • If each problem is solved by \(4\) pupils, prove that it is not necessary to have two schoolchildren who would solve each problem.

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.

Prove that any convex polygon contains not more than \(35\) vertices with an angle of less than \(170^\circ\).

A circle is covered with several arcs. These arcs can overlap one another, but none of them cover the entire circumference. Prove that it is always possible to select several of these arcs so that together they cover the entire circumference and add up to no more than \(720^{\circ}\).

At the end of the term, Billy wrote out his current singing marks in a row and put a multiplication sign between some of them. The product of the resulting numbers turned out to be equal to 2007. What is Billy’s term mark for singing? (The marks that he can get are between 2 and 5, where 5 is the highest mark).

Sarah believes that two watermelons are heavier than three melons, Anna believes that three watermelons are heavier than four melons. It is known that one of the girls is right, and the other is mistaken. Is it true that 12 watermelons are heavier than 18 melons? (It is believed that all watermelons weigh the same and all melons weigh the same.)

What is the largest number of counters that can be put on the cells of a chessboard so that on each horizontal, vertical and diagonal (not only on the main ones) there is an even number of counters?

Is it possible to arrange natural numbers from 1 to \(2002^2\) in the cells of a \(2002\times2002\) table so that for each cell of this table one could choose a triplet of numbers, from a row or column, where one of the numbers is equal to the product of the other two?

All of the points with whole number co-ordinates in a plane are plotted in one of three colours; all three colours are present. Prove that there will always be possible to form a right-angle triangle from these points so that its vertices are of three different colours.