A point \(P\) and a line \(L\) are drawn on a piece of paper. What is the shortest path from \(P\) to \(L\)? You should give a proof that your path is indeed the shortest.
Show that if any \(12\) two-digit numbers are given, you can always choose two of them such that their difference is of the form \(AA\) where \(A\) is some digit from \(0\) to \(9\).
You are given fifty-one whole numbers. Assume that the square of one number equals the sum of the squares of all the other fifty numbers. Prove that among these fifty-one numbers, there must be an even one.
Show that if \(k\) is a positive whole number, then the decimal expansion of \(1/k\) either has a finite number of decimal places or eventually repeats. For example, \[\frac{1}{5} = 0.2 \qquad\text{or}\qquad \frac{1}{17} = 0.\underbrace{0588235294117647}_{} \underbrace{0588235294117647}_{}\ldots\]
Can you find \(11\) distinct whole numbers whose last digits are all different from each other?
Show that if \(x,y,z\) are distinct nonzero numbers such that \(x+y+z = 0\), then we have \[\left(\frac{x-y}{z}+\frac{y-z}{x}+\frac{z-x}{y}\right)\left(\frac{z}{x-y}+\frac{x}{y-z}+\frac{y}{z-x}\right) = 9.\]
The Chinese remainder theorem is a fundamental result in number theory that allows one to decompose congruence problems to into simpler ones. The theorem says the following.
Suppose that \(m_1,m_2\) are coprime (i.e: they have no prime factors in common) natural numbers and \(a_1,a_2\) are integers. Then there is a unique integer \(x\) in the range \(0\leq x \leq m_1m_2-1\) such that \[x \equiv a_1 \pmod{m_1} \quad \text{ and } \quad x \equiv a_2 \pmod{m_2},\] where the notation \(x\equiv y \pmod{z}\) means that \(x-y=kz\) for some integer \(k\). Prove the Chinese remainder theorem using the pigeonhole principle.
We have ten positive integers \(x_1,\dots,x_{10}\) such that \(10\leq x_i\leq 99\) for \(1\leq i\leq 10\). Prove that there are two disjoint subsets of \(x_1,\dots,x_{10}\) with equal sums of their elements.
Each whole number is painted either blue or yellow, with the following rules:
The sum of two numbers painted in different colours is painted yellow.
The product of two numbers painted in different colours is painted blue.
There is at least one number of each colour. What possible colours can the product of two blue numbers have?
We make a long list of numbers in the following way. We start with \(1\) and \(1\). After that, each new number is the last digit of the sum of the two numbers right before it. For example, the beginning of the list is \[1,\,1,\,2,\,3,\,5,\,8,\,3,\,1,\,4,\ldots\]
Show that, if we keep making numbers like this forever, the list must eventually start repeating in a loop.