There are some coins on a table. One of these coins is fake (has a different weight than a real coin). By weighing them twice using balance scales, determine whether the fake coin is lighter or heavier than a real coin (you don’t need to find the fake coin) if the number of coins is: a) 100; b) 99; c) 98?
A professional tennis player plays at least one match each day for training purposes. However in order to ensure he does not over-exert himself he plays no more than 12 matches a week. Prove that it is possible to find a group of consecutive days during which the player plays a total of 20 matches.
100 fare evaders want to take a train, consisting of 12 coaches, from the first to the 76th station. They know that at the first station two ticket inspectors will board two coaches. After the 4th station, in the time between each station, one of the ticket inspectors will cross to a neighbouring coach. The ticket inspectors take turns to do this. A fare evader can see a ticket inspector only if the ticket inspector is in the next coach or the next but one coach. At each station each fare evader has time to run along the platform the length of no more than three coaches – for example at a station a fare evader in the 7th coach can run to any coach between the 4th and 10th inclusive and board it. What is the largest number of fare evaders that can travel their entire journey without ever ending up in the same coach as one of the ticket inspectors, no matter how the ticket inspectors choose to move? The fare evaders have no information about the ticket inspectors beyond that which is given here, and they agree their strategy before boarding.
Can you find
a) in the 100th line of Pascal’s triangle, the number \(1 + 2 + 3 + \dots + 98 + 99\)?
b) in the 200th line the sum of the squares of the numbers in the 100th line?
A road of length 1 km is lit with streetlights. Each streetlight illuminates a stretch of road of length 1 m. What is the maximum number of streetlights that there could be along the road, if it is known that when any single streetlight is extinguished the street will no longer be fully illuminated?
15 MPs take part in a debate. During the debate, each one criticises exactly \(k\) of the 14 other contributors. For what minimum value of \(k\) is it possible to definitively state that there will be two MPs who have criticised one another?
In the number \(1234096\dots\) each digit, starting with the 5th digit is equal to the final digit of the sum of the previous 4 digits. Will the digits 8123 ever occur in that order in a row in this number?
On the selection to the government of the planet of liars and truth tellers \(12\) candidates gave a speech about themselves. After a while, one said: “before me only once did someone lie” Another said: “And now-twice.” “And now – thrice” – said the third, and so on until the \(12\)th, who said: “And now \(12\) times someone has lied.” Then the presenter interrupted the discussion. It turned out that at least one candidate correctly counted how many times someone had lied before him. So how many times have the candidates lied?
There are 30 ministers in a parliament. Each two of them are either friends or enemies, and each is friends with exactly six others. Every three ministers form a committee. Find the total number of committees in which all three members are friends or all three are enemies.
Two people play the following game. Each player in turn rubs out 9 numbers (at his choice) from the sequence \(1, 2, \dots , 100, 101\). After eleven such deletions, 2 numbers will remain. The first player is awarded so many points, as is the difference between these remaining numbers. Prove that the first player can always score at least 55 points, no matter how played the second.