Two players in turn increase a natural number in such a way that at each increase the difference between the new and old values of the number is greater than zero, but less than the old value. The initial value of the number is 2. The winner is the one who can create the number 1987. Who wins with the correct strategy: the first player or his partner?
a) The vertices (corners) in a regular polygon with 10 sides are colored black and white in an alternating fashion (i.e. one vertex is black, the next is white, etc). Two people play the following game. Each player in turn draws a line connecting two vertices of the same color. These lines must not have common vertices (i.e. must not begin or end on the same dot as another line) with the lines already drawn. The winner of the game is the player who made the final move. Which player, the first or the second, would win if the right strategy is used?
b) The same problem, but for a regular polygon with 12 sides.
We consider a sequence of words consisting of the letters “A” and “B”. The first word in the sequence is “A”, the \(k\)-th word is obtained from the \((k-1)\)-th by the following operation: each “A” is replaced by “AAB” and each “B” by “A”. It is easy to see that each word is the beginning of the next, thus obtaining an infinite sequence of letters: AABAABAAABAABAAAB...
a) Where in this sequence will the 1000th letter “A” be?
b) Prove that this sequence is non-periodic.
Prove that in any group of 7 natural numbers – not necessarily consecutive – it is possible to choose three numbers such that their sum is divisible by 3.
a) We are given two cogs, each with 14 teeth. They are placed on top of one another, so that their teeth are in line with one another and their projection looks like a single cog. After this 4 teeth are removed from each cog, the same 4 teeth on each one. Is it always then possible to rotate one of the cogs with respect to the other so that the projection of the two partially toothless cogs appears as a single complete cog? The cogs can be rotated in the same plane, but cannot be flipped over.
b) The same question, but this time two cogs of 13 teeth each from which 4 are again removed?
What is the minimum number of squares that need to be marked on a chessboard, so that:
1) There are no horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent marked squares.
2) Adding any single new marked square breaks rule 1.
What figure should I put in place of the “?” in the number \(888 \dots 88\,?\,99 \dots 999\) (eights and nines are written 50 times each) so that it is divisible by 7?
We are given 101 rectangles with integer-length sides that do not exceed 100.
Prove that amongst them there will be three rectangles \(A, B, C\), which will fit completely inside one another so that \(A \subset B \subset C\).
A staircase has 100 steps. Vivian wants to go down the stairs, starting from the top, and she can only do so by jumping down and then up, down and then up, and so on. The jumps can be of three types – six steps (jumping over five to land on the sixth), seven steps or eight steps. Note that Vivian does not jump onto the same step twice. Will she be able to go down the stairs?
Solve the equation \(x + \frac{1}{(y + 1/z)}= 10/7\) in natural numbers.