Problems

You may remember the game Nim. We will now play a slightly modified version, called Thrim. In Thrim, there are two piles of stones (or any objects of your choosing), one of size \(1\) and the other of size \(5\).
Whoever takes the last stone wins. The players take it in turns to remove stones - they can only remove stones from one pile at a time, and they can remove at most \(3\) stones at a time.
Does the player going first or the player going second have a winning strategy?

A circle is inscribed in a triangle (that is, the circle touches the sides of the triangle on the inside). Let the radius of the circle be \(r\) and the perimeter of the triangle be \(p\). Prove that the area of the triangle is \(\frac{pr}{2}\).

We meet a group of people, all of whom are either knights or liars. Knights always tell the truth and liars always lie. Prove that it’s impossible for someone to say “I’m a liar".

We’re told that Leonhard and Carl are knights or liars (the two of them could be the same or one of each). They have the following conversation.

Leonhard says “If \(49\) is a prime number, then I am a knight."

Carl says “Leonhard is a liar".
Prove that Carl is a liar.

Four different digits are given. We use each of them exactly once to construct the largest possible four-digit number. We also use each of them exactly once to construct the smallest possible four-digit number which does not start with 0. If the sum of these two numbers is 10477, what are the given digits?

The picture below shows a closed disc, which is just a circle with the inside filled. The grey interior represents the interior of the disc. Describe the resulting shape when you glue the circular boundary to one point.

Today we will solve some logic problems. This time, we are visiting a strange planet. This planet is inhabited by two kinds of aliens, Cricks and Goops. The physical differences between them are not enough for a human being to distinguish them, but they have another remarkable feature. They can only ask questions. Cricks can only ask questions whose answer is yes, while Goops can only ask questions whose answer is no.

Label the vertices of a cube with the numbers \(1,2,3,\dots,8\) so that the sum of the labels of the four vertices of each of the six faces is the same.

Is it possible to construct a 485 × 6 table with the integers from 1 to 2910 such that the sum of the 6 numbers in each row is constant, and the sum of the 485 numbers in each column is also constant?

Let \(p\) be a prime number greater than \(3\). Prove that \(p^2-1\) is divisible by \(12\).