Problems

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Found: 26

Robinson found a chest with books and instruments after the ship wreck. Not all the books were in readable condition, but some of the books he managed to read. One sentence read “72 chickens cost *619* p”. (The starred digits were not readable). He has not tasted a chicken for quite some time, and it was pleasant to imagine a properly cooked chicken in front of him. He also was able to decipher the cost of one chicken. Can you?

Jack believes that he can place \(99\) integers in a circle such that for each pair of neighbours the ratio between the larger and smaller number is a prime. Can he be right?

In the US, it is customary to record the date as follows: the number of the month, then the number of the day and then the year. In Europe, the number comes first, then the month and then the year. How many days are there in the year, the date of which can be read definitively, without knowing how it was written?

Can there exist two functions \(f\) and \(g\) that take only integer values such that for any integer \(x\) the following relations hold:

a) \(f (f (x)) = x\), \(g (g (x)) = x\), \(f (g (x)) > x\), \(g (f (x)) > x\)?

b) \(f (f (x)) < x\), \(g (g (x)) < x\), \(f (g (x)) > x\), \(g (f (x)) > x\)?

Two different numbers \(x\) and \(y\) (not necessarily integers) are such that \(x^2-2000x=y^2-2000y\). Find the sum of \(x\) and \(y\).

Prove there are no natural numbers \(a\) and \(b\), such as \(a^2 - 3b^2 = 8\).

The board has the form of a cross, which is obtained if corner boxes of a square board of \(4 \times 4\) are erased. Is it possible to go around it with the help of the knight chess piece and return to the original cell, having visited all the cells exactly once?

30 people vote on five proposals. In how many ways can the votes be distributed if everyone votes only for one proposal and only the number of votes cast for each proposal is taken into account?

Prove there are no integer solutions for the equation \(x^2 + 1990 = y^2\).