Mathematical Circle

Homework (April 17-23) - Solutions

Problem 2. If the prime number is written as a sum of natural numbers , show

that .

Solution. Suppose . Then:

,( ) ( )-,( ) ( )-
( ) ( ) ( )
( ) ( )

( ) ( )
( )( )
or

But now, as , adding the two results, we get:

( ) or ( )

Which does not hold for a prime. Therefore, our original assumption that must be false.

Problem 3. A subset of the set * + containing elements contains at least two

(distinct) numbers , such that .

Solution. Consider the set mod , which has numbers of each type mod ( each of , , ,
, and , all mod 6). Now consider one of the subsets mod , and suppose that no two elements
add up to a number mod . If there are two ’s or two ’s, their sum would be divisible by six.
Therefore, there are at least numbers left, all of which are , , or mod . Now, if there is a
and a , or a and a , then their sum would be zero mod . Thus, the set can only contain ’s and
’s, or ’s and ’s mod . But even this way, a subset would have a maximum of
elements. If we add one more element, there will be at least one such sum divisible by .

Problem 4. In a square, any case could be coloured red or blue. Initially all cases are
blue. We can change the colour of all cases in a column or in a row. Is it possible to obtain, after
finitely many changes, precisely red cases? The same question, for red cases.

Solution. Whenever we change the colours of any row or column, the number of red cases
increases/decreases by an even number (even if an odd number of red cases occur, the blue cases
are also odd so the number increased/decreased is always even), so there can never be exactly
red cases.

Switching rows and columns you would get red cells. Creating an equations in terms of
row changes and column changes helps create any possible number of cells in 50 row and column
moves or less.

Problem 10. Let , be two distinct, non-zero complex numbers. Show that
 for any ,

If and only if there is a real number , - such that .

Solution. As satisfies the condition , we put it in the original equation:

| |

. /

Putting in the original equation:

(as is not always zero, and we are checking for every value. For , i.e.
, the case has been discussed above.)

So, as required, , - . Note that all steps are two way so the backward implication has
also been proved.