{"year": "2007", "tier": "T1", "problem_label": "1", "problem_type": null, "exam": "USAMO", "problem": "Let $n$ be a positive integer. Define a sequence by setting $a_{1}=n$ and, for each $k>1$, letting $a_{k}$ be the unique integer in the range $0 \\leq a_{k} \\leq k-1$ for which $a_{1}+a_{2}+\\cdots+a_{k}$ is divisible by $k$. (For instance, when $n=9$ the obtained sequence is $9,1,2,0,3,3,3, \\ldots$ ) Prove that for any $n$ the sequence $a_{1}, a_{2}, \\ldots$ eventually becomes constant.", "solution": " For each $k$, the number $$ b_{k}:=\\frac{1}{k}\\left(a_{1}+\\cdots+a_{k}\\right) $$ is a nonnegative integer. Claim - The sequence $\\left(b_{k}\\right)$ is eventually constant. $$ b_{k+1}=\\frac{a_{1}+\\cdots+a_{k}+a_{k+1}}{k+1} \\leq \\frac{k b_{k}+k}{k+1}1 / \\sqrt{2}$. In particular $(\\odot O)$ must contain a lattice point as it contains a unit square. Remark. The order of the argument here matters in subtle ways. A common approach is to try and reduce to the \"optimal\" case where we have three mutually tangent circles, and then apply the Descarte circle theorem. There are ways in which this approach can fail if the execution is not done with care. (In particular, one cannot simply say to reduce to this case, without some justification.) For example: it is not true that, given an infinite family of disks, we can enlarge disks until we get three mutually tangent ones. As a counterexample consider the \"square grid\" in which a circle is centered at $(10 m, 10 n)$ for each $m, n \\in \\mathbb{Z}$ and has radius 5 . Thus it is also not possible to simply pick three nearby circles and construct a circle tangent to all three: that newly constructed circle might intersect a fourth disk not in the picture. Thus, when constructing the small disk $\\odot O$ in the above solution, it seems easiest to start with a point not covered and grow $\\odot O$ until it is tangent to some three circles, and then argue by cosine law. Otherwise it not easy to determine which three circles to start with.", "metadata": {"resource_path": "USAMO/segmented/en-USAMO-2007-notes.jsonl"}} {"year": "2007", "tier": "T1", "problem_label": "3", "problem_type": null, "exam": "USAMO", "problem": "Let $S$ be a set containing $n^{2}+n-1$ elements. Suppose that the $n$-element subsets of $S$ are partitioned into two classes. Prove that there are at least $n$ pairwise disjoint sets in the same class.", "solution": " 【 First solution (Grant Yu). We define a set of $n+1$ elements to be useful if it has $n$-element subsets in each class. Consider a maximal collection of disjoint useful sets and assume there are $p$ such sets. Then, let $T$ be the set of elements remaining (i.e. not in one of chosen useful sets). Claim - All subsets of $T$ of size $n$ are the same color. We have $|T|=n^{2}+n-1-p(n+1)$, and in particular $p