Problems

Age
Difficulty
Found: 394

The nonzero numbers \(a\), \(b\), \(c\) are such that every two of the three equations \(ax^{11} + bx^4 + c = 0\), \(bx^{11} + cx^4 + a = 0\), \(cx^{11} + ax^4 + b = 0\) have a common root. Prove that all three equations have a common root.

2011 numbers are written on a blackboard. It turns out that the sum of any of these written numbers is also one of the written numbers. What is the minimum number of zeroes within this set of 2011 numbers?

The teacher wrote on the board in alphabetical order all possible \(2^n\) words consisting of \(n\) letters A or B. Then he replaced each word with a product of \(n\) factors, correcting each letter A by \(x\), and each letter B by \((1 - x)\), and added several of the first of these polynomials in \(x\). Prove that the resulting polynomial is either a constant or increasing function in \(x\) on the interval \([0, 1]\).

We are given a polynomial \(P(x)\) and numbers \(a_1\), \(a_2\), \(a_3\), \(b_1\), \(b_2\), \(b_3\) such that \(a_1a_2a_3 \ne 0\). It turned out that \(P (a_1x + b_1) + P (a_2x + b_2) = P (a_3x + b_3)\) for any real \(x\). Prove that \(P (x)\) has at least one real root.

When cleaning her children’s room, a mother found \(9\) socks. In a group of any \(4\) of the socks at least two belonged to the same child. In a group of any \(5\) of the socks no more than \(3\) had the same owner. How many children are there in the room and how many socks belong to each child?

A bag contains balls of two different colours – black and white. What is the minimum number of balls you need to remove, without looking, to guarantee that within the removed balls at least two are the same colour.

A forest contains a million fir trees. It is known that any given tree has at most 600,000 needles. Prove that there will be two trees with the same number of needles.