# Solutions of APMO 2014 Problem 1. For a positive integer $m$ denote by $S(m)$ and $P(m)$ the sum and product, respectively, of the digits of $m$. Show that for each positive integer $n$, there exist positive integers $a_{1}, a_{2}, \ldots, a_{n}$ satisfying the following conditions: $$ S\left(a_{1}\right)2(k+n-1)$ and we see that the numbers $a_{1}, \ldots, a_{n}$ chosen this way satisfy the given requirements. Problem 2. Let $S=\{1,2, \ldots, 2014\}$. For each non-empty subset $T \subseteq S$, one of its members is chosen as its representative. Find the number of ways to assign representatives to all non-empty subsets of $S$ so that if a subset $D \subseteq S$ is a disjoint union of non-empty subsets $A, B, C \subseteq S$, then the representative of $D$ is also the representative of at least one of $A, B, C$. (Warut Suksompong, Thailand) Solution. Answer: 108 - 2014!. For any subset $X$ let $r(X)$ denotes the representative of $X$. Suppose that $x_{1}=r(S)$. First, we prove the following fact: $$ \text { If } x_{1} \in X \text { and } X \subseteq S \text {, then } x_{1}=r(X) \text {. } $$ If $|X| \leq 2012$, then we can write $S$ as a disjoint union of $X$ and two other subsets of $S$, which gives that $x_{1}=r(X)$. If $|X|=2013$, then let $y \in X$ and $y \neq x_{1}$. We can write $X$ as a disjoint union of $\left\{x_{1}, y\right\}$ and two other subsets. We already proved that $r\left(\left\{x_{1}, y\right\}\right)=x_{1}$ (since $\left|\left\{x_{1}, y\right\}\right|=2<2012$ ) and it follows that $y \neq r(X)$ for every $y \in X$ except $x_{1}$. We have proved the fact. Note that this fact is true and can be proved similarly, if the ground set $S$ would contain at least 5 elements. There are 2014 ways to choose $x_{1}=r(S)$ and for $x_{1} \in X \subseteq S$ we have $r(X)=x_{1}$. Let $S_{1}=S \backslash\left\{x_{1}\right\}$. Analogously, we can state that there are 2013 ways to choose $x_{2}=r\left(S_{1}\right)$ and for $x_{2} \in X \subseteq S_{1}$ we have $r(X)=x_{2}$. Proceeding similarly (or by induction), there are $2014 \cdot 2013 \cdots 5$ ways to choose $x_{1}, x_{2}, \ldots, x_{2010} \in S$ so that for all $i=1,2 \ldots, 2010$, $x_{i}=r(X)$ for each $X \subseteq S \backslash\left\{x_{1}, \ldots, x_{i-1}\right\}$ and $x_{i} \in X$. We are now left with four elements $Y=\left\{y_{1}, y_{2}, y_{3}, y_{4}\right\}$. There are 4 ways to choose $r(Y)$. Suppose that $y_{1}=r(Y)$. Then we clearly have $y_{1}=r\left(\left\{y_{1}, y_{2}\right\}\right)=r\left(\left\{y_{1}, y_{3}\right\}\right)=r\left(\left\{y_{1}, y_{4}\right\}\right)$. The only subsets whose representative has not been assigned yet are $\left\{y_{1}, y_{2}, y_{3}\right\},\left\{y_{1}, y_{2}, y_{4}\right\}$, $\left\{y_{1}, y_{3}, y_{4}\right\},\left\{y_{2}, y_{3}, y_{4}\right\},\left\{y_{2}, y_{3}\right\},\left\{y_{2}, y_{4}\right\},\left\{y_{3}, y_{4}\right\}$. These subsets can be assigned in any way, hence giving $3^{4} \cdot 2^{3}$ more choices. In conclusion, the total number of assignments is $2014 \cdot 2013 \cdots 4 \cdot 3^{4} \cdot 2^{3}=108 \cdot 2014$ !. Problem 3. Find all positive integers $n$ such that for any integer $k$ there exists an integer $a$ for which $a^{3}+a-k$ is divisible by $n$. (Warut Suksompong, Thailand) Solution. Answer: All integers $n=3^{b}$, where $b$ is a nonnegative integer. We are looking for integers $n$ such that the set $A=\left\{a^{3}+a \mid a \in \mathbf{Z}\right\}$ is a complete residue system by modulo $n$. Let us call this property by $\left(^{*}\right)$. It is not hard to see that $n=1$ satisfies $\left({ }^{*}\right)$ and $n=2$ does not. If $a \equiv b(\bmod n)$, then $a^{3}+a \equiv b^{3}+b(\bmod n)$. So $n$ satisfies $\left(^{*}\right)$ iff there are no $a, b \in\{0, \ldots, n-1\}$ with $a \neq b$ and $a^{3}+a \equiv b^{3}+b(\bmod n)$. First, let us prove that $3^{j}$ satisfies $\left(^{*}\right)$ for all $j \geq 1$. Suppose that $a^{3}+a \equiv b^{3}+b\left(\bmod 3^{j}\right)$ for $a \neq b$. Then $(a-b)\left(a^{2}+a b+b^{2}+1\right) \equiv 0\left(\bmod 3^{j}\right)$. We can easily check mod 3 that $a^{2}+a b+b^{2}+1$ is not divisible by 3 . Next note that if $A$ is not a complete residue system modulo integer $r$, then it is also not a complete residue system modulo any multiple of $r$. Hence it remains to prove that any prime $p>3$ does not satisfy (*). If $p \equiv 1(\bmod 4)$, there exists $b$ such that $b^{2} \equiv-1(\bmod p)$. We then take $a=0$ to obtain the congruence $a^{3}+a \equiv b^{3}+b(\bmod p)$. Suppose now that $p \equiv 3(\bmod 4)$. We will prove that there are integers $a, b \not \equiv 0(\bmod p)$ such that $a^{2}+a b+b^{2} \equiv-1(\bmod p)$. Note that we may suppose that $a \not \equiv b(\bmod p)$, since otherwise if $a \equiv b(\bmod p)$ satisfies $a^{2}+a b+b^{2}+1 \equiv 0(\bmod p)$, then $(2 a)^{2}+(2 a)(-a)+$ $a^{2}+1 \equiv 0(\bmod p)$ and $2 a \not \equiv-a(\bmod p)$. Letting $c$ be the inverse of $b$ modulo $p$ (i.e. $b c \equiv 1(\bmod p)$ ), the relation is equivalent to $(a c)^{2}+a c+1 \equiv-c^{2}(\bmod p)$. Note that $-c^{2}$ can take on the values of all non-quadratic residues modulo $p$. If we can find an integer $x$ such that $x^{2}+x+1$ is a non-quadratic residue modulo $p$, the values of $a$ and $c$ will follow immediately. Hence we focus on this latter task. Note that if $x, y \in\{0, \ldots, p-1\}=B$, then $x^{2}+x+1 \equiv y^{2}+y+1(\bmod p)$ iff $p$ divides $x+y+1$. We can deduce that $x^{2}+x+1$ takes on $(p+1) / 2$ values as $x$ varies in $B$. Since there are $(p-1) / 2$ non-quadratic residues modulo $p$, the $(p+1) / 2$ values that $x^{2}+x+1$ take on must be 0 and all the quadratic residues. Let $C$ be the set of quadratic residues modulo $p$ and 0 , and let $y \in C$. Suppose that $y \equiv z^{2}(\bmod p)$ and let $z \equiv 2 w+1(\bmod p)$ (we can always choose such $\left.w\right)$. Then $y+3 \equiv$ $4\left(w^{2}+w+1\right)(\bmod p)$. From the previous paragraph, we know that $4\left(w^{2}+w+1\right) \in C$. This means that $y \in C \Longrightarrow y+3 \in C$. Unless $p=3$, the relation implies that all elements of $B$ are in $C$, a contradiction. This concludes the proof. Problem 4. Let $n$ and $b$ be positive integers. We say $n$ is $b$-discerning if there exists a set consisting of $n$ different positive integers less than $b$ that has no two different subsets $U$ and $V$ such that the sum of all elements in $U$ equals the sum of all elements in $V$. (a) Prove that 8 is a 100 -discerning. (b) Prove that 9 is not 100-discerning. (Senior Problems Committee of the Australian Mathematical Olympiad Committee) ## Solution. (a) Take $S=\{3,6,12,24,48,95,96,97\}$, i.e. $$ S=\left\{3 \cdot 2^{k}: 0 \leq k \leq 5\right\} \cup\left\{3 \cdot 2^{5}-1,3 \cdot 2^{5}+1\right\} $$ As $k$ ranges between 0 to 5 , the sums obtained from the numbers $3 \cdot 2^{k}$ are $3 t$, where $1 \leq t \leq 63$. These are 63 numbers that are divisible by 3 and are at most $3 \cdot 63=189$. Sums of elements of $S$ are also the numbers $95+97=192$ and all the numbers that are sums of 192 and sums obtained from the numbers $3 \cdot 2^{k}$ with $0 \leq k \leq 5$. These are 64 numbers that are all divisible by 3 and at least equal to 192. In addition, sums of elements of $S$ are the numbers 95 and all the numbers that are sums of 95 and sums obtained from the numbers $3 \cdot 2^{k}$ with $0 \leq k \leq 5$. These are 64 numbers that are all congruent to $-1 \bmod$ 3. Finally, sums of elements of $S$ are the numbers 97 and all the numbers that are sums of 97 and sums obtained from the numbers $3 \cdot 2^{k}$ with $0 \leq k \leq 5$. These are 64 numbers that are all congruent to $1 \bmod 3$. Hence there are at least $63+64+64+64=255$ different sums from elements of $S$. On the other hand, $S$ has $2^{8}-1=255$ non-empty subsets. Therefore $S$ has no two different subsets with equal sums of elements. Therefore, 8 is 100 -discerning. (b) Suppose that 9 is 100 -discerning. Then there is a set $S=\left\{s_{1}, \ldots, s_{9}\right\}, s_{i}<100$ that has no two different subsets with equal sums of elements. Assume that $0