Problems

Age
Difficulty
Found: 1976

In a dark room on a shelf there are 4 pairs of socks of two different sizes and two different colours that are not arranged in pairs. What is the minimum number of socks necessary to move from the drawer to the suitcase, without leaving the room, so that there are two pairs of socks of different sizes and colours in the suitcase?

A council of 2,000 deputies decided to approve a state budget containing 200 items of expenditure. Each deputy prepared his draft budget, which indicated for each item the maximum allowable, in his opinion, amount of expenditure, ensuring that the total amount of expenditure did not exceed the set value of \(S\). For each item, the board approves the largest amount of expenditure that is agreed to be allocated by no fewer than \(k\) deputies. What is the smallest value of \(k\) for which we can ensure that the total amount of approved expenditures does not exceed \(S\)?

Izzy wrote a correct equality on the board: \(35 + 10 - 41 = 42 + 12 - 50\), and then subtracted 4 from both parts: \(35 + 10 - 45 = 42 + 12 - 54\). She noticed that on the left hand side of the equation all of the numbers are divisible by 5, and on the right hand side by 6. Then she took 5 outside of the brackets on the left hand side and 6 on the right hand side and got \(5(7 + 2 - 9)4 = 6(7 + 2 - 9)\). Having simplified both sides by a common multiplier, Izzy found that \(5 = 6\). Where did she go wrong?

A carpet of size 4 m by 4 m has had 15 holes made in it by a moth. Is it always possible to cut out a 1 m \(\times\) 1 m area of carpet that doesn’t contain any holes? The holes are considered to be points.

The natural number \(a\) was increased by 1, and its square increased by 1001. What is \(a\)?

In a basket, there are 30 red and green apples. Among any 12 apples there is at least one red one, and among any 20 apples there is at least one green one. How many red apples and how many green apples are there in the basket?

In the numbers of MEXAILO and LOMONOSOV, each letter denotes a number (different letters correspond to different numbers). It is known that the products of the numbers of these two words are equal. Can both numbers be odd?

On an island there are 1,234 residents, each of whom is either a knight (who always tells the truth) or a liar (who always lies). One day, all of the inhabitants of the island were broken up into pairs, and each one said: “He is a knight!" or “He is a liar!" about his partner. Could it eventually turn out to be that the number of “He is a knight!" and “He is a liar!" phrases is the same?