Problems

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A gang contains 50 gangsters. The whole gang has never taken part in a raid together, but every possible pair of gangsters has taken part in a raid together exactly once. Prove that one of the gangsters has taken part in no less than 8 different raids.

There are three sets of dominoes of different colours. How can you put the dominoes from all three sets into a chain (according to the rules of the game) so that every two neighbouring dominoes are of a different colour?

On every cell of a \(9 \times 9\) board there is a beetle. At the sound of a whistle, every beetle crawls onto one of the diagonally neighbouring cells. Note that, in some cells, there may be more than one beetle, and some cells will be unoccupied.

Prove that there will be at least 9 unoccupied cells.

On the planet Tau Ceti, the landmass takes up more than half the surface area. Prove that the Tau Cetians can drill a hole through the centre of their planet that connects land to land.

When boarding a plane, a line of \(n\) passengers was formed, each of whom has a ticket for one of the \(n\) places. The first in the line is a crazy old man. He runs onto the plane and sits down in a random place (perhaps, his own). Then passengers take turns to take their seats, and in the case that their place is already occupied, they sit randomly on one of the vacant seats. What is the probability that the last passenger will take his assigned seat?

10 natural numbers are written on a blackboard. Prove that it is always possible to choose some of these numbers and write “\(+\)” or “\(-\)” between them so that the resulting algebraic sum is divisible by 1001.