In each cell of a board of size \(5\times5\) a cross or a nought is placed, and no three crosses are positioned in a row, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. What is the largest number of crosses on the board?
An after school club is attended by 4 boys from class 7A, and four from class 7B. Of those who attended three were named Ben, three were named Will, and two were named Tom.
Is it possible for it to be the case that each boy had at least one namesake classmate who attended the club?
Authors: B. Vysokanov, N. Medved, V. Bragin
The teacher grades tests on a scale from 0 to 100. The school can change the upper bound of the scale to any other natural number, recalculating the estimates proportionally and rounding up to integers. A non-integer number, when rounded, changes to the nearest integer; if the fractional part is equal to 0.5, the direction of rounding can be either up or down and it can be different for each question. (For example, an estimate of 37 on a scale of 100 after recalculation in the scale of 40 will go to \(37 \cdot 40/100 = 14.8\) and will be rounded to 15).
The students of Peter and Valerie got marks, which are not 0 and 100. Prove that the school can do several conversions so that Peter’s mark becomes b and Valerie’s mark becomes a (both marks are recalculated simultaneously).
Three cyclists travel in one direction along a circular track that is 300 meters long. Each of them moves with a constant speed, with all of their speeds being different. A photographer will be able to make a successful photograph of the cyclists, if all of them are on some part of the track which has a length of \(d\) meters. What is the smallest value of \(d\) for which the photographer will be able to make a successful photograph sooner or later?
We took several positive numbers and constructed the following sequence: \(a_1\) is the sum of the initial numbers, \(a_2\) is the sum of the squares of the original numbers, \(a_3\) is the sum of the cubes of the original numbers, and so on.
a) Could it happen that up to \(a_5\) the sequence decreases (\(a_1> a_2> a_3> a_4> a_5\)), and starting with \(a_5\) – it increases (\(a_5 < a_6 < a_7 <\dots\))?
b) Could it be the other way around: before \(a_5\) the sequence increases, and starting with \(a_5\) – decreases?
A grasshopper can make jumps of 8, 9 and 10 cells in any direction on a strip of \(n\) cells. We will call the natural number \(n\) jumpable if the grasshopper can, starting from some cell, bypass the entire strip, having visited each cell exactly once. Find at least one \(n > 50\) that is not jumpable.
One hundred gnomes weighing each 1, 2, 3, ..., 100 pounds, gathered on the left bank of a river. They cannot swim, but on the same shore is a rowing boat with a carrying capacity of 100 pounds. Because of the current, it’s hard to swim back, so each gnome has enough power to row from the right bank to the left one no more than once (it’s enough for any one of the gnomes to row in the boat, the rower does not change during one voyage). Will all gnomes cross to the right bank?
There was a football match of 10 versus 10 players between a team of liars (who always lie) and a team of truth-tellers (who always tell the truth). After the match, each player was asked: “How many goals did you score?” Some participants answered “one”, Callum said “two”, some answered “three”, and the rest said “five”. Is Callum lying if it is known that the truth-tellers won with a score of 20:17?
It is known that \(a = x+y + \sqrt{xy}\), \(b = y + z + \sqrt{yz}\), \(c = x + z + \sqrt{xz}\). where \(x > 0\), \(y > 0\), \(z > 0\). Prove that \(a + b + \sqrt{ab} > c\).
Suppose that in each issue of our journal in the “Quantum” problem book there are five mathematics problems. We denote by \(f (x, y)\) the number of the first of the problems of the \(x\)-th issue for the \(y\)-th year. Write a general formula for \(f (x, y)\), where \(1 \geq x \geq 12\) and \(1970 \geq y \geq 1989\). Solve the equation \(f (x, y) = y\). For example, \(f (6, 1970) = 26\). Since \(1989\), the number of tasks has become less predictable. For example, in recent years, half the issues have 5 tasks, and in other issues there are 10. Even the number of magazine issues has changed, no longer being 12 but now 6.