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k a April Highlights and 2025 AoPS Online Class Information
jlacosta   0
Apr 2, 2025
Spring is in full swing and summer is right around the corner, what are your plans? At AoPS Online our schedule has new classes starting now through July, so be sure to keep your skills sharp and be prepared for the Fall school year! Check out the schedule of upcoming classes below.

WOOT early bird pricing is in effect, don’t miss out! If you took MathWOOT Level 2 last year, no worries, it is all new problems this year! Our Worldwide Online Olympiad Training program is for high school level competitors. AoPS designed these courses to help our top students get the deep focus they need to succeed in their specific competition goals. Check out the details at this link for all our WOOT programs in math, computer science, chemistry, and physics.

Looking for summer camps in math and language arts? Be sure to check out the video-based summer camps offered at the Virtual Campus that are 2- to 4-weeks in duration. There are middle and high school competition math camps as well as Math Beasts camps that review key topics coupled with fun explorations covering areas such as graph theory (Math Beasts Camp 6), cryptography (Math Beasts Camp 7-8), and topology (Math Beasts Camp 8-9)!

Be sure to mark your calendars for the following events:
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April 9th (Webinar), 4:00pm PT/7:00pm ET, Learn about Video-based Summer Camps at the Virtual Campus
[*]April 10th (Math Jam), 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET, 2025 MathILy and MathILy-Er Math Jam: Multibackwards Numbers
[*]April 22nd (Webinar), 4:00pm PT/7:00pm ET, Competitive Programming at AoPS (USACO).[/list]
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0 replies
jlacosta
Apr 2, 2025
0 replies
k i Adding contests to the Contest Collections
dcouchman   1
N Apr 5, 2023 by v_Enhance
Want to help AoPS remain a valuable Olympiad resource? Help us add contests to AoPS's Contest Collections.

Find instructions and a list of contests to add here: https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c40244h1064480_contests_to_add
1 reply
dcouchman
Sep 9, 2019
v_Enhance
Apr 5, 2023
k i Zero tolerance
ZetaX   49
N May 4, 2019 by NoDealsHere
Source: Use your common sense! (enough is enough)
Some users don't want to learn, some other simply ignore advises.
But please follow the following guideline:


To make it short: ALWAYS USE YOUR COMMON SENSE IF POSTING!
If you don't have common sense, don't post.


More specifically:

For new threads:


a) Good, meaningful title:
The title has to say what the problem is about in best way possible.
If that title occured already, it's definitely bad. And contest names aren't good either.
That's in fact a requirement for being able to search old problems.

Examples:
Bad titles:
- "Hard"/"Medium"/"Easy" (if you find it so cool how hard/easy it is, tell it in the post and use a title that tells us the problem)
- "Number Theory" (hey guy, guess why this forum's named that way¿ and is it the only such problem on earth¿)
- "Fibonacci" (there are millions of Fibonacci problems out there, all posted and named the same...)
- "Chinese TST 2003" (does this say anything about the problem¿)
Good titles:
- "On divisors of a³+2b³+4c³-6abc"
- "Number of solutions to x²+y²=6z²"
- "Fibonacci numbers are never squares"


b) Use search function:
Before posting a "new" problem spend at least two, better five, minutes to look if this problem was posted before. If it was, don't repost it. If you have anything important to say on topic, post it in one of the older threads.
If the thread is locked cause of this, use search function.

Update (by Amir Hossein). The best way to search for two keywords in AoPS is to input
[code]+"first keyword" +"second keyword"[/code]
so that any post containing both strings "first word" and "second form".


c) Good problem statement:
Some recent really bad post was:
[quote]$lim_{n\to 1}^{+\infty}\frac{1}{n}-lnn$[/quote]
It contains no question and no answer.
If you do this, too, you are on the best way to get your thread deleted. Write everything clearly, define where your variables come from (and define the "natural" numbers if used). Additionally read your post at least twice before submitting. After you sent it, read it again and use the Edit-Button if necessary to correct errors.


For answers to already existing threads:


d) Of any interest and with content:
Don't post things that are more trivial than completely obvious. For example, if the question is to solve $x^{3}+y^{3}=z^{3}$, do not answer with "$x=y=z=0$ is a solution" only. Either you post any kind of proof or at least something unexpected (like "$x=1337, y=481, z=42$ is the smallest solution). Someone that does not see that $x=y=z=0$ is a solution of the above without your post is completely wrong here, this is an IMO-level forum.
Similar, posting "I have solved this problem" but not posting anything else is not welcome; it even looks that you just want to show off what a genius you are.

e) Well written and checked answers:
Like c) for new threads, check your solutions at least twice for mistakes. And after sending, read it again and use the Edit-Button if necessary to correct errors.



To repeat it: ALWAYS USE YOUR COMMON SENSE IF POSTING!


Everything definitely out of range of common sense will be locked or deleted (exept for new users having less than about 42 posts, they are newbies and need/get some time to learn).

The above rules will be applied from next monday (5. march of 2007).
Feel free to discuss on this here.
49 replies
ZetaX
Feb 27, 2007
NoDealsHere
May 4, 2019
Learning 3D Geometry
KAME06   0
24 minutes ago
Could you help me with some 3D geometry books? Or any book with 3D geometry information, specially if it's focuses on math olympiads (like Putnam).
0 replies
KAME06
24 minutes ago
0 replies
Three-player money transfer game with unique winner per round
rilarfer   1
N 33 minutes ago by Lankou
Source: ASJTNic 2005
Ana, Bárbara, and Cecilia play a game with the following rules:
[list]
[*] In each round, exactly one player wins.
[*] The two losing players each give half of their current money to the winner.
[/list]
The game proceeds as follows:

[list=1]
[*] Ana wins the first round.
[*] Bárbara wins the second round.
[*] Cecilia wins the third round.
[/list]
At the end of the game, the players have the following amounts:
[list]
[*] Ana: C$35
[*] Bárbara: C$75
[*] Cecilia: C$150
[/list]
How much money did each of them have at the beginning?
1 reply
rilarfer
an hour ago
Lankou
33 minutes ago
Find all integer solutions to an exponential equation involving powers of 2 and
rilarfer   2
N 41 minutes ago by teomihai
Source: ASJTNic 2005
Find all integer pairs $(x, y)$ such that:
$$
2^x + 3^y = 3^{y + 2} - 2^{x + 1}.
$$
2 replies
rilarfer
an hour ago
teomihai
41 minutes ago
Winning strategy in a two-player subtraction game starting with 65 tokens
rilarfer   1
N an hour ago by CHESSR1DER
Source: ASJTNic 2005
Juan and Pedro play the following game:
[list]
[*] There are initially 65 tokens.
[*] The players alternate turns, starting with Juan.
[*] On each turn, a player may remove between 1 and 7 tokens.
[*] The player who removes the last token wins.
[/list]
Describe and justify a strategy that guarantees Juan a win.
1 reply
rilarfer
an hour ago
CHESSR1DER
an hour ago
Radius of circle tangent to two equal circles and a common line
rilarfer   1
N an hour ago by Lankou
Source: ASJTNic 2005
Two circles of radius 2 are tangent to each other and to a straight line. A third circle is placed so that it is tangent to both of the other circles and also tangent to the same straight line.

What is the radius of the third circle?

IMAGE
1 reply
rilarfer
an hour ago
Lankou
an hour ago
Four-variable FE mod n
TheUltimate123   2
N an hour ago by cosmicgenius
Source: PRELMO 2023/3 (http://tinyurl.com/PRELMO)
Let \(n\) be a positive integer, and let \(\mathbb Z/n\mathbb Z\) denote the integers modulo \(n\). Determine the number of functions \(f:(\mathbb Z/n\mathbb Z)^4\to\mathbb Z/n\mathbb Z\) satisfying \begin{align*}     &f(a,b,c,d)+f(a+b,c,d,e)+f(a,b,c+d,e)\\     &=f(b,c,d,e)+f(a,b+c,d,e)+f(a,b,c,d+e). \end{align*}for all \(a,b,c,d,e\in\mathbb Z/n\mathbb Z\).
2 replies
TheUltimate123
Jul 11, 2023
cosmicgenius
an hour ago
Functional divisibility for large arguments
Assassino9931   3
N an hour ago by Assassino9931
Source: Bulgaria Winter Mathematical Competition 2025 12.3
Determine all functions $f: \mathbb{Z}_{\geq 2025} \to \mathbb{Z}_{>0}$ such that $mn+1$ divides $f(m)f(n) + 1$ for any integers $m,n \geq 2025$ and there exists a polynomial $P$ with integer coefficients, such that $f(n) \leq P(n)$ for all $n\geq 2025$.
3 replies
Assassino9931
Jan 27, 2025
Assassino9931
an hour ago
Max integer divisible by 25 with leftover equal to one-fourth of a share
rilarfer   0
an hour ago
Source: ASJTNic 2005
In preparation for a piñata, a certain number of candies was bought to be equally distributed among 25 guests. However, during the distribution, it was noticed that one-fourth of the amount each guest should receive was always left over.

What is the greatest number of candies that could have been originally purchased?
0 replies
rilarfer
an hour ago
0 replies
ISI 2019 : Problem #2
integrated_JRC   38
N an hour ago by kamatadu
Source: I.S.I. 2019
Let $f:(0,\infty)\to\mathbb{R}$ be defined by $$f(x)=\lim_{n\to\infty}\cos^n\bigg(\frac{1}{n^x}\bigg)$$(a) Show that $f$ has exactly one point of discontinuity.
(b) Evaluate $f$ at its point of discontinuity.
38 replies
integrated_JRC
May 5, 2019
kamatadu
an hour ago
Combinatorics
TUAN2k8   2
N an hour ago by soryn
A sequence of integers $a_1,a_2,...,a_k$ is call $k-balanced$ if it satisfies the following properties:
$i) a_i \neq a_j$ and $a_i+a_j \neq 0$ for all indices $i \neq j$.
$ii) \sum_{i=1}^{k} a_i=0$.
Find the smallest integer $k$ for which: Every $k-balanced$ sequence, there always exist two terms whose diffence is not less than $n$. (where $n$ is given positive integer)
2 replies
TUAN2k8
Today at 8:22 AM
soryn
an hour ago
fourier series divergence
DurdonTyler   1
N 2 hours ago by aiops
I previously proved that there is $f \in C_{\text{per}}([-\pi,\pi]; \mathbb{C})$ such that its Fourier series diverges at $x=0$. There is nothing special about the point $x=0$, it was just for convenience. The same proof showed that for every $t \in [-\pi,\pi]$, there is $f_t \in C_{\text{per}}([-\pi,\pi]; \mathbb{C})$ such that the Fourier series of $f_t(x)$ diverges at $x=t$, not to show.

My question to prove:
(a) Let $(X, \| \cdot \|_X)$ be a Banach space and for every $n \geq 1$ we have a normed space $(Y_n, \| \cdot \|_{Y_n})$. Suppose that for every $n \geq 1$ there is $(T_{n,k})_{k \geq 1} \subset L(X; Y_n)$ and $x_n \in X$ such that
\[
    \sup_{k \geq 1} \| T_{n,k}x_n \|_{Y_n} = \infty.
    \]Show that
\[
    B = \left\{ x \in X : \sup_{k \geq 1} \| T_{n,k}x \|_{Y_n} = \infty \ \forall n \geq 1 \right\}
    \]is of second category. (I am given the hint to write $A = X \setminus B$ as
\[
    A = \bigcup_{n \geq 1} A_n = \bigcup_{n \geq 1} \left\{ x \in X : \sup_{k \geq 1} \| T_{n,k}x \|_{Y_n} < \infty \right\}
    \]and show that $A_n$ is of first category.)

(b) Let $D = \{t_1, t_2, \ldots\} \subset [-\pi, \pi)$. Show that there is $f_D \in C_{\text{per}}([-\pi,\pi]; \mathbb{C})$ such that the Fourier series of $f_D(x)$ diverges at $x = t_n$ for all $n \geq 1$. (I'm given the hint to use part a) with
\[
    T_{n,k} : (C_{\text{per}}([-\pi,\pi]; \mathbb{C}), \| \cdot \|_\infty) \to \mathbb{C}, \quad f \mapsto S_k(f)(t_n),
    \]where
\[
    S_k(f)(x) = \sum_{|j| \leq k} c_j(f) e^{ijx}.
    \]
1 reply
DurdonTyler
2 hours ago
aiops
2 hours ago
source own
Bet667   5
N 2 hours ago by GeoMorocco
Let $x,y\ge 0$ such that $2(x+y)=1+xy$ then find minimal value of $$x+\frac{1}{x}+\frac{1}{y}+y$$
5 replies
Bet667
4 hours ago
GeoMorocco
2 hours ago
Cross-ratio Practice!
shanelin-sigma   3
N 2 hours ago by MENELAUSS
Source: 2024 imocsl G3 (Night 6-G)
Triangle $ABC$ has circumcircle $\Omega$ and incircle $\omega$, where $\omega$ is tangent to $BC, CA, AB$ at $D,E,F$, respectively. $T$ is an arbitrary point on $\omega$. $EF$ meets $BC$ at $K$, $AT$ meets $\Omega$ again at $P$, $PK$ meets $\Omega$ again at $S$. $X$ is a point on $\Omega$ such that $S, D, X$ are colinear. Let $Y$ be the intersection of $AX$ and $EF$, prove that $YT$ is tangent to $\omega$.

Proposed by chengbilly
3 replies
shanelin-sigma
Aug 8, 2024
MENELAUSS
2 hours ago
Soviet Union University Mathematical Contest
geekmath-31   1
N 4 hours ago by Filipjack
Given a n*n matrix A, prove that there exists a matrix B such that ABA = A

Solution: I have submitted the attachment

The answer is too symbol dense for me to understand the answer.
What I have undertood:

There is use of direct product in the orthogonal decomposition. The decomposition is made with kernel and some T (which the author didn't mention) but as per orthogonal decomposition it must be its orthogonal complement.

Can anyone explain the answer in much much more detail with less use of symbols ( you can also use symbols but clearly define it).

Also what is phi | T ?
1 reply
geekmath-31
Today at 3:40 AM
Filipjack
4 hours ago
Matrices and combinatorics
KAME06   1
N Apr 6, 2025 by Rainbow1971
Source: Ecuador National Olympiad OMEC level U 2024 P1 Day 1
Let $n \in \mathbb{Z}$. A matrix is n-national if its size is $2 \times 2$ and their entries belong to the set $\{2, 2^2, 2^3, ..., 2^n\}$. For example:
$$\begin{bmatrix} 2 & 8 \\ 16 & 4 \end{bmatrix}, \begin{bmatrix} 4 & 4 \\ 8 & 8 \end{bmatrix}, \begin{bmatrix} 8 & 2 \\ 16 & 8 \end{bmatrix}$$For all $n \in \mathbb{Z}$, find the number of invertible n-national matrices.
1 reply
KAME06
Apr 5, 2025
Rainbow1971
Apr 6, 2025
Matrices and combinatorics
G H J
G H BBookmark kLocked kLocked NReply
Source: Ecuador National Olympiad OMEC level U 2024 P1 Day 1
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KAME06
150 posts
#1 • 1 Y
Y by PikaPika999
Let $n \in \mathbb{Z}$. A matrix is n-national if its size is $2 \times 2$ and their entries belong to the set $\{2, 2^2, 2^3, ..., 2^n\}$. For example:
$$\begin{bmatrix} 2 & 8 \\ 16 & 4 \end{bmatrix}, \begin{bmatrix} 4 & 4 \\ 8 & 8 \end{bmatrix}, \begin{bmatrix} 8 & 2 \\ 16 & 8 \end{bmatrix}$$For all $n \in \mathbb{Z}$, find the number of invertible n-national matrices.
Z K Y
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Rainbow1971
35 posts
#2
Y by
The entries from such are matrix are supposed to be in the set $\{2, 2^2, 2^3, ..., 2^n\}$. This set appears to be empty for $n=0$, so there are no 0-national matrices, let alone invertible ones.

Let $n \neq 0$ now. The matrices to be counted are of the form
$$\begin{bmatrix} 2^a & 2^b \\ 2^c & 2^d \end{bmatrix} \quad \text{such that} \quad 2^a \cdot 2^d - 2^b \cdot 2^c \neq 0,$$where the inequality is equivalent to the matrix being invertible. The inequality is equivalent to $a+d \neq b+c$. If we ignore the inequality for a moment, we have $n^4$ possible matrices. We must subtract those with $a+d=b+c$. Here it becomes obvious that it does not matter if $a,b,c,d$ are in the range from $1$ to $n$ for a positive $n$ or in the range from $-1$ to $n$ for a negative $n$. Let $n$ therefore be positive.

On both sides of the equation $a+d=b+c$, the possible sums range from $2$ to $2n$. For the sum 2, there is one choice for $a,d$ to produce that sum. For 3, there are two choices. We reach the maximum number of choices for the sum $n+1$ where we have $n$ choices. From then onward, we incrementally go down to one choice for the sum $2n$.

As we need to produce the same sum with $a+d$ and $b+c$, we must square each number of choices to obtain the number of combined choices for both sides of $a+d = b+c$. Therefore, the total number of choices with $a + d = b + c$ is
$$1^2 + 2^2 + 3^2 + \ldots (n-1)^2 + n^2 + (n-1)^2 + \ldots + 3^2 + 2^2 + 1^2 = n^2 + 2 \cdot \sum_{i=1}^{n-1} i^2 = n^2 + 2 \cdot \tfrac{1}{6} (n-1) \cdot n \cdot (2n-1) = \tfrac{2}{3} n^3 +  \tfrac{1}{3} n.$$Therefore, for a positive $n$, the number of invertible n-national matrices is
$$n^4 -  \tfrac{2}{3} n^3 -  \tfrac{1}{3} n.$$For a negative $n$, the variable $n$ needs to be replaced by $-n$ here.
This post has been edited 1 time. Last edited by Rainbow1971, Apr 6, 2025, 2:26 PM
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