olymmath

IMO 2021 Problem 5

  • Day 2

Two squirrels, Bushy and Jumpy, have collected 2021 walnuts for the winter. Jumpy numbers the walnuts from 1 through 2021, and digs 2021 little holes in a circular pattern in the ground around their favourite tree. The next morning Jumpy notices that Bushy had placed one walnut into each hole, but had paid no attention to the numbering. Unhappy, Jumpy decides to reorder the walnuts by performing a sequence of 2021 moves. In the kk -th move, Jumpy swaps the positions of the two walnuts adjacent to walnut kk .

Prove that there exists a value of kk such that, on the kk -th move, Jumpy swaps some walnuts aa and bb such that a<k<ba<k<b .

Official text Transcription from AI-MO AoPS, checked word for word against the official paper. Quoted with source.

Official text: IMO 2021 official English paper, page 2.

Solutions

No solution is on olymmath yet. Official and human solutions come first when they arrive. AI solutions come after them, with a label.

Add a solution

Locator imo/2021/p5 · Tag 5VK2425BHG · Edit this page on GitHub · Keys: j next, k previous