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The 75th William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition Saturday, December 6, 2014

The document summarizes 6 problems (A1-A6 and B1-B6) from the 75th William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. The problems cover a range of mathematical topics including: - Taylor series expansions and rational coefficients - Matrix determinants and properties - Infinite products and their closed forms - Probability distributions and expectations - Polynomials and their relative primality - Linear functions on intervals

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Ravi Teja
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85 views1 page

The 75th William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition Saturday, December 6, 2014

The document summarizes 6 problems (A1-A6 and B1-B6) from the 75th William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. The problems cover a range of mathematical topics including: - Taylor series expansions and rational coefficients - Matrix determinants and properties - Infinite products and their closed forms - Probability distributions and expectations - Polynomials and their relative primality - Linear functions on intervals

Uploaded by

Ravi Teja
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The 75th William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition

Saturday, December 6, 2014

A1 Prove that every nonzero coefficient of the Taylor series


of
(1 x + x2 )ex
about x = 0 is a rational number whose numerator (in
lowest terms) is either 1 or a prime number.
A2 Let A be the n n matrix whose entry in the i-th row
and j-th column is
1
min(i, j)

B2 Suppose that f is a function on the interval [1, 3] such


R
that 1 f (x) 1 for all x and 13 f (x) dx = 0. How
R
large can 13 f (x)
x dx be?
B3 Let A be an m n matrix with rational entries. Suppose that there are at least m + n distinct prime numbers
among the absolute values of the entries of A. Show that
the rank of A is at least 2.
B4 Show that for each positive integer n, all the roots of the
polynomial
n

2k(nk) xk
k=0

for 1 i, j n. Compute det(A).


A3 Let a0 = 5/2 and ak = a2k1 2 for k 1. Compute


1
1

ak
k=0

in closed form.
A4 Suppose X is a random variable that takeson only non2
negative
 3  integer values, with E [X] = 1, E X = 2, and
E X = 5. (Here E [y] denotes the expectation of the
random variable Y .) Determine the smallest possible
value of the probability of the event X = 0.
A5 Let
Pn (x) = 1 + 2x + 3x2 + + nxn1 .

are real numbers.


B5 In the 75th annual Putnam Games, participants compete
at mathematical games. Patniss and Keeta play a game
in which they take turns choosing an element from the
group of invertible n n matrices with entries in the
field Z/pZ of integers modulo p, where n is a fixed
positive integer and p is a fixed prime number. The
rules of the game are:
(1) A player cannot choose an element that has been
chosen by either player on any previous turn.
(2) A player can only choose an element that commutes with all previously chosen elements.
(3) A player who cannot choose an element on his/her
turn loses the game.

Prove that the polynomials Pj (x) and Pk (x) are relatively


prime for all positive integers j and k with j 6= k.

Patniss takes the first turn. Which player has a winning


strategy? (Your answer may depend on n and p.)

A6 Let n be a positive integer. What is the largest k


for which there exist n n matrices M1 , . . . , Mk and
N1 , . . . , Nk with real entries such that for all i and j, the
matrix product Mi N j has a zero entry somewhere on its
diagonal if and only if i 6= j?

B6 Let f : [0, 1] R be a function for which there exists a


constant K > 0 such that | f (x) f (y)| K |x y| for all
x, y [0, 1]. Suppose also that for each rational number
r [0, 1], there exist integers a and b such that f (r) =
a + br. Prove that there exist finitely many intervals
I1 , . . . , InSsuch that f is a linear function on each Ii and
[0, 1] = ni=1 Ii .

B1 A base 10 over-expansion of a positive integer N is an


expression of the form
N = dk 10k + dk1 10k1 + + d0 100
with dk 6= 0 and di {0, 1, 2, . . . , 10} for all i. For
instance, the integer N = 10 has two base 10 overexpansions: 10 = 10 100 and the usual base 10 expansion 10 = 1 101 + 0 100 . Which positive integers have
a unique base 10 over-expansion?

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