Problems

Age
Difficulty
Found: 1912

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?

Solving the problem: “What is the solution of the expression \(x^{2000} + x^{1999} + x^{1998} + 1000x^{1000} + 1000x^{999} + 1000x^{998} + 2000x^3 + 2000x^2 + 2000x + 3000\) (\(x\) is a real number) if \(x^2 + x + 1 = 0\)?”, Vasya got the answer of 3000. Is Vasya right?

Prove that amongst the numbers of the form \[19991999\dots 19990\dots 0\] – that is 1999 a number of times, followed by a number of 0s – there will be at least one divisible by 2001.

There are three piles of rocks: in the first pile there are 10 rocks, 15 in the second pile and 20 in the third pile. In this game (with two players), in one turn a player is allowed to divide one of the piles into two smaller piles. The loser is the one who cannot make a move. Which player would be the winner?

In the first pile there are 100 sweets and in the second there are 200. Consider the game with two players where: in one turn a player can take any amount of sweets from one of the piles. The winner is the one who takes the last sweet. Which player would win by using the correct strategy?

In the dense dark forest ten sources of dead water are erupting from the ground: named from #1 to #10. Of the first nine sources, dead water can be taken by everyone, but the source #10 is in the cave of the dark wizard, from which no one, except for the dark wizard himself, can collect water. The taste and color of dead water is no different from ordinary water, however, if a person drinks from one of the sources, then he will die. Only one thing can save him: if he then drinks poison from a source whose number is greater. For example, if he drinks from the seventh source, then he must necessarily drink poison from the #8, #9 or #10 sources. If he doesn’t drink poison from the seventh source, but does from the ninth, only the poison from the source #10 will save him. And if he originally drinks the tenth poison, then nothing will help him now. Robin Hood summoned the dark wizard to a duel. The terms of the duel were as follows: each brings with him a mug of liquid and gives it to his opponent. The dark wizard was delighted: “Hurray, I will give him poison #10, and Robin Hood can not be saved! And I’ll drink the poison, which Robin Hood brings to me, then ill drink the #10 poison and that will save me!” On the appointed day, both opponents met at the agreed place. They honestly exchanged mugs and drank what was in them. However, afterwards erupted the joy and surprise of the inhabitants of the dark forest, when it turned out that the dark wizard had died, and Robin Hood remained alive! Only the Wise Owl was able to guess how Robin Hood had managed to defeat dark wizard. Try and guess as well.

The best student in the class, Katie, made up a huge number, writing out in a row all of the natural numbers from 1 to 500: \[123 \dots 10111213 \dots 499500.\] The second-best student, Tom, erased the first 500 digits of this number. What do you think, what number does the remaining number begin with?