The 77th William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition

Saturday, December 3, 2016

A1 Find the smallest positive integer j such that for every A6 Find the smallest constant C such that for every real
polynomial p(x) with integer coefficients and for every polynomial P (x) of degree 3 that has a root in the in-
integer k, the integer terval [0, 1],

dj
 Z 1
p(j) (k) =

j
p(x) |P (x)| dx ≤ C max |P (x)|.
dx 
x=k 0 x∈[0,1]

(the j-th derivative of p(x) at k) is divisible by 2016. B1 Let x0 , x1 , x2 , . . . be the sequence such that x0 = 1
A2 Given a positive integer n, let M (n) be the largest inte- and for n ≥ 0,
ger m such that
xn+1 = ln(exn − xn )
   
m m−1
> . (as usual, the function ln is the natural logarithm).
n−1 n Show that the infinite series
Evaluate x0 + x1 + x2 + · · ·
M (n)
lim . converges and find its sum.
n→∞ n
B2 Define a positive integer n to be squarish if either n
A3 Suppose that f is a function from R to R such that is itself a perfect square or the distance from n to the
  nearest perfect square is a perfect square. For example,
1
f (x) + f 1 − = arctan x 2016 is squarish, because the nearest perfect square to
x 2016 is 452 = 2025 and 2025 − 2016 = 9 is a perfect
for all real x 6= 0. (As usual, y = arctan x means square. (Of the positive integers between 1 and 10, only
−π/2 < y < π/2 and tan y = x.) Find 6 and 7 are not squarish.)
Z 1 For a positive integer N, let S(N ) be the number of
squarish integers between 1 and N, inclusive. Find pos-
f (x) dx.
0
itive constants α and β such that
S(N )
A4 Consider a (2m − 1) × (2n − 1) rectangular region, lim = β,
where m and n are integers such that m, n ≥ 4. The N →∞ Nα
region is to be tiled using tiles of the two types shown: or show that no such constants exist.
B3 Suppose that S is a finite set of points in the plane such
that the area of triangle 4ABC is at most 1 whenever
A, B, and C are in S. Show that there exists a triangle
of area 4 that (together with its interior) covers the set
S.
(The dotted lines divide the tiles into 1 × 1 squares.)
The tiles may be rotated and reflected, as long as their B4 Let A be a 2n × 2n matrix, with entries chosen inde-
sides are parallel to the sides of the rectangular region. pendently at random. Every entry is chosen to be 0 or
They must all fit within the region, and they must cover 1, each with probability 1/2. Find the expected value
it completely without overlapping. of det(A − At ) (as a function of n), where At is the
transpose of A.
What is the minimum number of tiles required to tile
the region? B5 Find all functions f from the interval (1, ∞) to (1, ∞)
with the following property: if x, y ∈ (1, ∞) and x2 ≤
A5 Suppose that G is a finite group generated by the two
y ≤ x3 , then (f (x))2 ≤ f (y) ≤ (f (x))3 .
elements g and h, where the order of g is odd. Show
that every element of G can be written in the form B6 Evaluate
∞ ∞
g m1 hn1 g m2 hn2 · · · g mr hnr X (−1)k−1 X 1
n+1
.
k k2
with 1 ≤ r ≤ |G| and mn , n1 , m2 , n2 , . . . , mr , nr ∈ k=1 n=0
{1, −1}. (Here |G| is the number of elements of G.)