Problems

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Propose a method for measuring the diagonal of a conventional brick, which is easily realied in practice (without the Pythagorean theorem).

A two-player game with matches. There are 37 matches on the table. In each turn, a player is allowed to take no more than 5 matches. The winner of the game is the player who takes the final match. Which player wins, if the right strategy is used?

In the US, it is customary to record the date as follows: the number of the month, then the number of the day and then the year. In Europe, the number comes first, then the month and then the year. How many days are there in the year, the date of which can be read definitively, without knowing how it was written?

Can the equality \(K \times O \times T\) = \(U \times W \times E \times H \times S \times L\) be true if instead of the letters in it we substitute integers from 1 to 9 (different letters correspond to different numbers)?

What is the maximum number of kings, that cannot capture each other, which can be placed on a chessboard of size \(8 \times 8\) cells?

Prove that the number of all arrangements of the largest possible amount of peaceful bishops (figures that move on diagonals and don’t threaten each other) on the \(8\times 8\) chessboard is an exact square.

Can there exist two functions \(f\) and \(g\) that take only integer values such that for any integer \(x\) the following relations hold:

a) \(f (f (x)) = x\), \(g (g (x)) = x\), \(f (g (x)) > x\), \(g (f (x)) > x\)?

b) \(f (f (x)) < x\), \(g (g (x)) < x\), \(f (g (x)) > x\), \(g (f (x)) > x\)?

A resident of one foreign intelligence agency informed the centre about the forthcoming signing of a number of bilateral agreements between the fifteen former republics of the USSR. According to his report, each of them will conclude an agreement exactly with three others. Should this resident be trusted?

In any group of 10 children, out of a total of 60 pupils, there will be three who are in the same class. Will it always be the case that amongst the 60 pupils there will be: 1) 15 classmates? 2) 16 classmates?