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Foundations of Combinatorial Algorithms: Pranav Sriram India Math Olympiad Orientation Camp 2021

This document presents 25 problems that illustrate fundamental ideas in combinatorial algorithms. The problems cover topics like graph theory, combinatorics, and extremal combinatorics. They emphasize applications of greedy and local algorithms. A handful of simple algorithmic ideas have wide-ranging applications demonstrated by these problems.

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Upaj Dhakal
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191 views

Foundations of Combinatorial Algorithms: Pranav Sriram India Math Olympiad Orientation Camp 2021

This document presents 25 problems that illustrate fundamental ideas in combinatorial algorithms. The problems cover topics like graph theory, combinatorics, and extremal combinatorics. They emphasize applications of greedy and local algorithms. A handful of simple algorithmic ideas have wide-ranging applications demonstrated by these problems.

Uploaded by

Upaj Dhakal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Foundations of Combinatorial Algorithms

Pranav Sriram
India Math Olympiad Orientation Camp 2021

1
Introduction

In this document, we present a collection of interesting problems that illus-


trate several fundamental ideas in the design and analysis of combinatorial al-
gorithms. The problems below span several topic areas, including algorithms,
processes, graph theory, combinatorial geometry, combinatorial number theory,
and extremal combinatorics. We particularly emphasize applications of greedy
and local algorithms. We will see that a handful of simple ideas have powerful,
wide-reaching applications.

2
Problems

Problem 1 [All-Russian Olympiad, 1961]


You are given an m x n grid of real numbers. Call an individual row or column
a line. In a move, you are allowed to select any line, and flip the signs of each
number in this line. Prove that you can make a finite sequence of moves, such
that the sum of entries in any line is nonnegative at the end.

Problem 2 [Based on India TST 2001]


Does there exist a sequence of 1729 consecutive positive integers containing ex-
actly 42 primes?

Problem 3 [Based on IMO Shortlist 2013, C1]


You’re about to go on a vacation and have several items you need to pack. Each
item weighs between 0 and 1 units, and the total weight of all items is n units,
where n is a given positive integer. Each item must be placed in a bag, and the
weight limit of any bag is 1 unit. What is the maximum number of bags you
may need, in terms of n?

1
Problem 4 [Classical]
Given a cube of cheese and a knife. What is the minimum number of cuts re-
quired to slice the cheese into 27 identical cubes?

Problem 5 [Switzerland 2010, Generalized]


We are given n > 1 coins placed on the number line, at integer locations
x1 , x2 , . . . , xn . We are allowed the following operation: pick any two coins,
and move one of them right by 1 unit and the other left by 1 unit.

Our goal is to eventually move all n coins to the same location. Determine a
necessary and sufficient condition on the numbers x1 , . . . , xn for this goal to be
achievable.

Problem 6 [Classical]
An ant walks one mile South, one mile West, and then one mile North, and
finds itself exactly where it started. How many possible starting locations for
the ant exist? (Note: you may assume the Earth is a perfect sphere.)

Problem 7 [Original Proposal]


The 2021 numbers {1, 2, ..., 2021} are written on a blackboard. We are allowed
the following move: choose any two numbers on the blackboard, say a and b,
and replace them by the number 16ab − 176(a + b) + 1947.

After performing 2020 such operations, a single number α remains on the board.
Determine all possible values of α.

Problem 8 [All-Russian Olympiad, 1994]


There are n blue points and n red points on a line. Show that the sum of
pairwise distances between points of the same color cannot exceed the sum of
pairwise distances between points of opposite colors.

Problem 9 [Original Proposal]


Does there exist a set S of 63 distinct nonnegative integers, each less than 2017,
such that for any distinct a, b, c in this set, abc + 1 is not divisible by 2017?

Remark: What is the effect of replacing 2017 by 2027 in this problem?

Problem 10 [Putnam 1979]


We are given 2n points in the plane, of which n are colored blue and n are
colored red. No three of the points are collinear. A matching is a collection of n
line segments, each connecting one red point to one blue point, such that each
of the 2n points is the endpoint of exactly one segment. Prove that there exists
a matching in which no two of the drawn line segments intersect.

2
Problem 11 [Graph Partition Lemma]
There are n students in a Zoom call, some pairs of whom are friends. Show that
the teacher can divide them into two breakout rooms, such that each student
has at least as many friends in the opposite room as in their own room.

Problem 12 [Weight Balancing Lemma]


Let x1 , x2 , ..., xn be n given real numbers in the interval [−M, M ]. Prove that
there exist coefficients s1 , s2 , ..., sn each in {−1, 1} such that
n
X
si xi ≤ M.



i=1

Problem 13 [IMO Shortlist 1993, C2]


Let n, k ∈ Z+ with k ≤ n and let S be a set containing n distinct real num-
bers. Let T be the set of all real numbers of the form x1 + x2 + . . . + xk
where x1 , x2 , . . . , xk are distinct elements of S. Prove that T contains at least
k(n − k) + 1 distinct elements.

Problem 14 [Spanning Trees]


Let G = (V, E) be an undirected graph. A spanning tree of G is a tree T , whose
vertex set is V and edge set is a subset of E.

Show that every connected graph contains a spanning tree.

Problem 15 [Bipartite Graphs]


A graph G is bipartite if its vertex set V can be partitioned into two sets V1
and V2 , such that every edge of G has exactly one endpoint in each of V1 and V2 .

Prove that a graph is bipartite if and only if it contains no cycles of odd length.

Problem 16 [All-Russian Olympiad, 1998]


Ivan has a standard 52-card deck. He draws the cards from the deck one by one,
without putting them back in the deck. Every time before drawing a card he
guesses the suit of the card he will draw. His goal is to guess the suit correctly
as many times as possible.

Ivan comes up with the following greedy algorithm: always guess the suit that
occurs most frequently in the remaining deck, breaking ties arbitrarily. Help
Ivan prove that this greedy algorithm guarantees he will guess correctly at least
13 times.

3
Problem 17 [Tournament-Triangle Lemma]
A tournament is a directed graph obtained by assigning a direction for each
edge in an undirected complete graph.

Show that a tournament T contains a cycle if and only if it contains a triangle.

Problem 18 [Landau’s Theorem]


Call a vertex v in a tournament T a champion if for every vertex u in T , there
is a directed path from v to u in T of length at most 2. Does every finite,
non-empty tournament have a champion?

Problem 19 [Based on USA TST 2001]


Let G be a directed graph on n vertices, such that no vertex has out-degree
greater than k. Show that the vertices of G can be colored in 2k + 1 colors such
that no two vertices of the same color have a directed edge between them.

Problem 20 [Netherlands EGMO TST 2014, Problem 5]


Let n be a positive integer, and let S = {1, 2, ..., n}. Daniel and Merlijn are
playing a game. Daniel has k sheets of paper, where k is a positive integer. For
each 1 ≤ i ≤ n, on the ith sheet, Daniel writes some set Si ⊆ S. On the back
of this sheet, he writes the complement S\Si .

Once Daniel is finished, Merlijn can flip some of the sheets of paper (he is allowed
to flip no sheet at all, or all sheets). If Merlijn succeeds in making all numbers
in S visible at least once, then he wins.
Determine the smallest k for which Merlijn can always win, regardless of Daniel’s
actions.

Problem 21 [All-Russian Olympiad, 2004]


Let G = (V, E) be the complete undirected graph on 2004 vertices. Each edge
of G is colored using one of four colors, and each color is used on at least one
edge.

Does there necessarily exist a set S ⊆ V of vertices, such that exactly three
colors appear among the edges whose endpoints both belong to S?

Problem 22 [Havel-Hakimi Algorithm]


Does there exist a graph G on 12 vertices, whose vertices have degrees
(9, 8, 8, 7, 6, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 1)?

4
Problem 23 [All-Russian Olympiad, 2010]
Let G be an undirected connected graph. Suppose that, for any odd cycle C in
G, the removal of the edges in C from G results in G being disconnected. Show
that G is 4-colorable.

Note: A graph is k-colorable if we can assign each vertex a label in {1, 2, ..., k}
such that no two vertices connected by an edge have the same label.

Problem 24 [IMO Shortlist 2018, C3]


Let n be a given positive integer. Sisyphus performs a sequence of turns on a
board consisting of n + 1 squares in a row, numbered 0 to n from left to right.
Initially, n stones are put into square 0, and the other squares are empty. In
each turn, Sisyphus chooses any nonempty square, say with k stones, takes one
of these stones and moves it to the right by at most k squares (the stone should
say within the board). Sisyphus’ aim is to move all n stones to square n.

Prove that Sisyphus cannot reach the aim in less than


lnm lnm lnm lnm
+ + + ··· +
1 2 3 n
turns.

Problem 25 [IMO 1983, Problem 5]


Does there exist a set of 1983 positive integers, each less than 105 , such that no
three of them are in arithmetic progression?

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