A Problem Set on PHP

Aditya Ghosh

1. For any positive integers n and t, if tn + 1 or more objects are placed in n boxes, then at least
one box will contain more than t objects.

2. If the average of some real numbers is t, then at least one of the numbers is greater than or
equal to t and at least one of them is less than or equal to t.

3. Among six persons, there are always three who know each other or three who are complete
strangers.

4. A point (x, y) in the coordinate plane is called a lattice point if x, y both are integers. Suppose
that five lattice points are given in the plane. Prove that you can always choose two of these
points such that the segment joining these points passes through another lattice point.

5. A line in the plane of 4ABC passes through no vertex. Show that it cannot cut all the three
sides of the triangle.

6. A target has the shape of an equilateral triangle with side length 2 cm. Show that if the target
is hit 5 times, then there will be two holes at a distance ≤ 1 cm.

7. Ten points are placed within an equilateral triangle of unit side-length. Show that there
exists two points with distance at most 1/3 apart.

8. Missy and Mussy are very messy sisters. Their dresser drawer consists of 6 white socks,
2 black socks, 10 blue socks and 8 red socks. What is the minimum number of socks they
must remove from the drawer, in order to be certain that they have removed four socks of
the same color?

9. Given any set of five integers, show that you can always choose three of them whose sum is
divisible by 3.

10. Suppose that 51 integers are selected from {1, 2, . . . , 100}. Prove that there must exist

(a) two of them which are coprime,

(b) two of them whose sum is a prime,
(c) two of them, say m and n, such that m is divisible by n.

11. Let n be a positive integer which is not divisible by 2 or 5. Prove that there is a multiple of n
consisting entirely of ones.

12. Let a be a positive integer which is not divisible by 2 or 5. Prove that there exists a positive
integer k such that ak ends with 0001. Show further that there exist infinitely many such k.

13. Suppose that n persons meet in a room and shake hands. Prove that during the greeting
ceremony there are always two persons who have done equal number of handshakes.

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14. The length of each side of a convex quadrilateral ABCD is < 24. Let P be any point inside
ABCD. Prove that there must exists a vertex whose distance from P is less than 17.

15. S is a set of n positive integers. None of the elements of S is divisible by n. Prove that there
exists a subset of S such that the sum of its elements is divisible by n.

16. Given any set of 10 distinct two-digit numbers, say S, show that one can always choose two
disjoint nonempty subsets of S such that their elements have the same sum.

17. Suppose that every point in a plane is coloured using one of two colours. Prove that there
will always exist

(a) two points of the same colour such that their midpoint also have the same colour,
(b) an equilateral triangle with all its vertices of the same color,
(c) a rectangle with all its vertices of the same color.

18. Prove that among any seven real numbers x1 , x2 , . . . , x7 , there exist two, say xi and xj , such
xi − xj 1
that 0 ≤ ≤√ .
1 + xi xj 3
19. Let a1 , . . . , a100 and b1 , . . . , b100 be two permutations of the integers from 1 to 100. Prove that
among the products a1 b1 , . . . , a100 b100 , there are two with the same remainder upon division
by 100.

20. Suppose that 25 rooks are placed on a 8 × 8 chessboard. Prove that there must exist four
rooks, none of which attack each other. (Recall that rooks attack each piece located on its
row or column.)

21. Given any real number x and any natural number N > 1, show that there exists integers a
and b such that 1 ≤ a ≤ N and |ax − b| < 1/N.

22. A chessmaster has 77 days to prepare for a tournament. He wants to play at least one game
per day, but not more then 132 games. Prove that there is a sequence of successive days on
which he plays exactly 21 games.

23. 1700 students participated in a true-false test. Knowing that 15 questions were given the
test, that none of the students has answered two consecutive questions correctly, and that all
of them have answered all the questions, do there exist two identical answer-sheets?

24. A set of numbers S is called sum-free if for any a, b ∈ S (not necessarily distinct), it holds
that a + b ∈
/ S. What is the maximum possible size of a sum-free subset of {1, 2, · · · , 2n + 1}?

25. In the sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 3, 1, 4, . . . each term starting with the third is the sum of the
two preceding terms. But addition is done modulo 10. Prove that this sequence is periodic.

26. Define the sequence of Fibonacci numbers as: F1 = F2 = 1 and Fn = Fn−1 + Fn−2 for every
n > 2. Prove that, for any positive integer k, there is a Fibonacci number ending with k
zeros.