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Consider a chess board of size \(n \times n\). It is required to move a rook from the bottom left corner to the upper right corner. You can move only up and to the right, without going into the cells of the main diagonal and the one below it. (The rook is on the main diagonal only initially and in the final moment in time.) How many possible routes does the rook have?

Tickets cost 50 cents, and \(2n\) buyers stand in line at a cash register. Half of them have one dollar, the rest – 50 cents. The cashier starts selling tickets without having any money. How many different orders of people can there be in the queue, such that the cashier can always give change?

Prove that the Catalan numbers satisfy the recurrence relationship \(C_n = C_0C_{n-1} + C_1C_{n-2} + \dots + C_{n-1}C_0\). The definition of the Catalan numbers \(C_n\) is given in the handbook.

Let \(m\) and \(n\) be integers. Prove that \(mn(m + n)\) is an even number.

Prove that if \(p\) is a prime number, then \((a + b)^p - a^p - b^p\) is divisible by \(p\) for any integers \(a\) and \(b\).

Write the following rational numbers in the form of decimal fractions: a) \(\frac {1}{7}\); b) \(\frac {2}{7}\); c) \(\frac{1}{14}\); d) \(\frac {1}{17}\).

a) One person had a basement illuminated by three electric bulbs. Switches of these bulbs are located outside the basement, so that having switched on any of the switches, the owner has to go down to the basement to see which lamp switches on. One day he came up with a way to determine for each switch which bulb it switched on, descending into the basement exactly once. What is the method?

b) If he goes down to the basement exactly twice, how many bulbs can he identify the switches for?

Peter thought of a number between 1 to 200. What is the fewest number of questions for which you can guess the number if Peter answers

a) “yes ” or “no”;

b) “yes”, “no” or “I do not know”

for every question?

There are 4 coins. Of the four coins, one is fake (it differs in weight from the real ones, but it is not known if it is heavier or lighter). Find the fake coin using two weighings on scales without weights.