Problems

Age
Difficulty
Found: 1979

In Scotland there are \(m\) football teams containing 11 players each. All of the players met at the airport in order to travel to England for a match. The plane made 10 journeys from Scotland to England, carrying 10 passengers each time. One player also flew to the location of the match by helicopter. Prove that at least one team made it in its entirety to the other country to play the match.

You are given 8 different natural numbers that are no greater than 15. Prove that there are three pairs of these numbers whose positive difference is the same.

Prove that in any group of 5 people there will be two who know the same number of people in that group.

Several football teams are taking part in a football tournament, where each team plays every other team exactly once. Prove that at any point in the tournament there will be two teams who have played exactly the same number of matches up to that point.

a) What is the maximum number of squares on an \(8\times 8\) grid that can be shaded in with a black pen such that each ‘L’ shaped group of 3 squares has at least one unshaded square.

b) What is the maximum number of squares on an \(8\times 8\) grid that can be shaded in with a black pen, such that each ‘L’ shaped group of 3 squares has at least one shaded square.

10 school students took part in a Mathematical Olympiad and solved 35 problems in total. It is known that there were students who solved exactly one problem, students who solved exactly two problems, and students who solved exactly three problems. Prove that there is a student who solved exactly 5 problems.

What is the maximum number of kings you could place on a chess board such that no two of them were attacking each other – that is, no two kings are on horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent squares. Kings can move in any direction, but only one square at a time.

At the end of the month 5 workers were paid a total of £1,500 between them. Each wants to buy themselves a smartphone that costs £320. Prove that one of them will have to wait another month in order to do so.