Peter marks several cells on a \(5 \times 5\) board. His friend, Richard, will win if he can cover all of these cells with non-overlapping corners of three squares, that do not overlap with the border of the square (you can only place the corners on the squares). What is the smallest number of cells that Peter should mark so that Richard cannot win?
A group of several friends was in correspondence in such a way that each letter was received by everyone except for the sender. Each person wrote the same number of letters, as a result of which all together the friends received 440 letters. How many people could be in this group of friends?
In the Republic of mathematicians, the number \(\alpha > 2\) was chosen and coins were issued with denominations of 1 pound, as well as in \(\alpha^k\) pounds for every natural \(k\). In this case \(\alpha\) was chosen so that the value of all the coins, except for the smallest, was irrational. Could it be that any amount of a natural number of pounds can be made with these coins, using coins of each denomination no more than 6 times?
In the isosceles triangle \(ABC\), the angle \(B\) is equal to \(30^{\circ}\), and \(AB = BC = 6\). The height \(CD\) of the triangle \(ABC\) and the height \(DE\) of the triangle \(BDC\) are drawn. Find the length \(BE\).
Three players are playing knockout table tennis – that is, the player who loses a game swaps places with the player who did not take part in that game and the winner stays on. In total Andrew played 10 games, Ben played 15, and Charlotte played 17. Which player lost the second game played?
On a ring road at regular intervals there are 25 posts, each with a policeman. The police are numbered in some order from 1 to 25. It is required that they cross the road so that there is a policeman on each post, but so that number 2 was clockwise behind number 1, number 3 was clockwise behind number 2, and so on. Prove that if you organised the transition so that the total distance travelled was the smallest, then one of the policemen will remain at his original post.
In a line 40 signs are written out: 20 crosses and 20 zeros. In one move, you can swap any two adjacent signs. What is the least number of moves in which it is guaranteed that you can ensure that some 20 consecutive signs are crosses?
Valentina added a number (not equal to 0) taken to the power of four and the same number to the power two and reported the result to Peter. Can Peter determine the unique number that Valentina chose?
In a row there are 20 different natural numbers. The product of every two of them standing next to one another is the square of a natural number. The first number is 42. Prove that at least one of the numbers is greater than 16,000.
The numbers \(1, 2, 3,\dots , 10\) are written around a circle in a particular order. Peter calculated the sum of each of the 10 possible groups of three adjacent numbers around the circle and wrote down the smallest value he had calculated. What is the largest possible value he could have written down?