Combinatorial Geometry

Sizhe Pan
6th December 2022

General Tips
• Visualise the question • Draw, draw, draw
• Notice the trivial observations • Rigorise your intuition

Strategies
• Induction - for Constructions and Bounding • Perturbation
• Contradiction • Pigeonhole Principle
• Convex Hull • Graph Theory
• Colouring • Helly’s Theorem

• Euler’s Formula • Discrete Intermediate Value Theorem

Level 0 (Warm-ups)
1. For n ≥ 3, the sequence of points A1 , A2 , . . . , An in the Cartesian plane has increasing x-coordinates.
The line A1 A2 has positive gradient, the line A2 A3 has negative gradient, and the gradients continue
to alternate in sign, up to the line An−1 An . So the zigzag path A1 A2 . . . An forms a sequence of
alternating peaks and valleys at A2 , A3 , . . . , An−1 .
The angle less than 180◦ defined by the two line segments that meet at a peak is called a peak angle.
Similarly, the angle less than 180◦ defined by the two line segments that meet at a valley is called a
valley angle. Let P be the sum of all peak angles and let V be the sum of all the valley angles.
Prove that if P ≤ V , then n must be even.
2. Each√point in the plane is assigned one of four colours. Prove that there exist two points at distance
1 or 3 from each other that are assigned the same colour.
3. Suppose that S is a set of 2017 points in the plane that are not all collinear. Prove that S contains
three points that form a triangle whose circumcentre is not a point in S.

Level 1
1. Consider an arrangement of tokens in the plane, not necessarily at distinct points. We are allowed to
apply a sequence of moves of the following kind: select a pair of tokens at points A and B and move
both of them to the midpoint of A and B.
We say that an arrangement of n tokens is collapsible if it is possible to end up with all n tokens at
the same point after a finite number of moves. Prove that every arrangement of n tokens is collapsible
if and only if n is a power of 2.

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 2. A set of points is marked on the plane, with the property that any three marked points can be covered
with a disk of radius 1. Prove that the set of all marked points can be covered with a disk of radius 1.
3. Let Q be a point inside a convex polygon P1 P2 . . . P1000 . For each i = 1, 2, . . . , 1000, extend the line
Pi Q until it meets the polygon again at a point Xi . Suppose that none of the points X1 , X2 , . . . , X1000
is a vertex of the polygon.

Prove that there is at least one side of the polygon that does not contain any of the points X1 , X2 , . . . , X1000 .
4. We have six pairwise non-intersecting circles that the radius of each is at least one (no circle lies in
the interior of any other circle). Prove that the radius of any circle intersecting all the six circles, is at
least one.
5. Define a guillotine of a triangle as cutting it across the median into two triangles. Show that if one
starts with an acute scalene triangle, after a finite number of guillotines, it is not possible to end up
with all triangles isosceles.

Level 2
1. A configuration of 4027 points in the plane is called Colombian if it consists of 2013 red points and
2014 blue points, and no three of the points of the configuration are collinear. By drawing some lines,
the plane is divided into several regions. An arrangement of lines is good for a Colombian configuration
if the following two conditions are satisfied:
i) No line passes through any point of the configuration.
ii) No region contains points of both colors.
Find the least value of k such that for any Colombian configuration of 4027 points, there is a good
arrangement of k lines.
2. Find all integers n ≥ 3 for which every convex equilateral n-gon of side length 1 contains an equilateral
triangle of side length 1. (Here, polygons contain their boundaries.)
3. Let S be a set of 2n + 1 points in the plane such that no three are collinear and no four concyclic. A
circle will be called good if it has 3 points of S on its circumference, n − 1 points in its interior and
n − 1 points in its exterior. Prove that the number of good circles has the same parity as n.
4. We say that a finite set S of points in the plane is balanced if, for any two different points A and B in
S, there is a point C in S such that AC = BC. We say that S is centre-free if for any three different
points A, B and C in S, there is no points P in S such that P A = P B = P C.
a) Show that for all integers n ≥ 3, there exists a balanced set consisting of n points.
b) Determine all integers n ≥ 3 for which there exists a balanced centre-free set consisting of n
points.
5. Consider n disks C1 , C2 , ..., Cn in a plane such that for each 1 ≤ i < n, the center of Ci is on the
circumference of Ci+1 , and the center of Cn is on the circumference of C1 . Define the score of such an
arrangement of n disks to be the number of pairs (i, j) for which Ci properly contains Cj . Determine
the maximum possible score.
6. Let n be a positive integer. Consider 2n distinct lines on the plane, no two of which are parallel. Of
the 2n lines, n are colored blue, the other n are colored red. Let B be the set of all points on the plane
that lie on at least one blue line, and R the set of all points on the plane that lie on at least one red
line. Prove that there exists a circle that intersects B in exactly 2n − 1 points, and also intersects R
in exactly 2n − 1 points.
7. There are 100 circles of radius one in the plane. A triangle formed by the centres of any three given
circles has area at most 2017. Prove that there is a line intersecting at least three of the circles.

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Level 3
This section contains very difficult problems. If you can solve more than half of Level 2 problems, try these.
1. Let k ≥ n be positive integers. n points are marked on a line. It is known that for each marked point,
the number of marked points at a distance ≤ 1 from it (including the point itself) is divisible by k.
Show that n is divisible by k.
2. We say that a triangulation of a convex polygon P is splitting if each triangle has the same area. Prove
that any two splitting triangulations of P differ by at most two triangles.
Note: Two triangulations differ by at most two triangles if it is possible to replace two triangles in the
first triangulation by another pair to obtain the second triangulation.
3. Is it possible to cover a circle of area 1 with finitely many equilateral triangles whose areas sum to
1.01, all pointing in the same direction?
4. In the Cartesian coordinate plane define the strip Sn = {(x, y) | n ≤ x < n + 1} for every integer
n. Assume that each strip Sn is colored either red or blue, and let a and b be two distinct positive
integers. Prove that there exists a rectangle with side lengths a and b such that its vertices have the
same color.
5. Find the smallest positive number λ, such that for any 12 points on the plane P1 , P2 , . . . , P12 (can
overlap), if the distance between any two of them does not exceed 1, then
X
|Pi Pj |2 ≤ λ
1≤i<j≤12

6. A set of lines in the plane is in general position if no two are parallel and no three pass through the
same point. A set of lines in general position cuts the plane into regions, some of which have finite area;
we call these its finite regions. Prove that
√ for all sufficiently large n, in any set of n lines in general
position it is possible to colour at least n lines blue in such a way that none of its finite regions has
a completely blue boundary.
√ √
Note: Results with n replaced by c n will be awarded points depending on the value of the constant
c.
7. Let M be a set of n ≥ 4 points in the plane, no three of which are collinear. Initially these points are
connected with n segments so that each point in M is the endpoint of exactly two segments. Then, at
each step, one may choose two segments AB and CD sharing a common interior point and replace them
by the segments AC and BD if none of them is present at this moment. Prove that it is impossible to
perform n3 /4 or more such moves.
8. Prove that there exists a positive constant c such that the following statement is true: Consider an
integer n > 1, and a set S of n points in the plane such that the distance between any two different
points in S is at least 1. It follows that there is a line ` separating S such that the distance from any
point of S to ` is at least cn−1/3 .

(A line ` separates a set of points S if some segment joining two points in S crosses `.)

Note. Weaker results with cn−1/3 replaced by cn−α may be awarded points depending on the value of
the constant α > 1/3.
9. Let S be a finite set of at least two points in the plane. Assume that no three points of S are collinear.
By a windmill we mean a process as follows. Start with a line ` going through a point P ∈ S. Rotate
` clockwise around the pivot P until the line contains another point Q of S. The point Q now takes
over as the new pivot. This process continues indefinitely, with the pivot always being a point from S.
Show that for a suitable P ∈ S and a suitable starting line ` containing P , the resulting windmill will
visit each point of S as a pivot infinitely often.