olymmath

Putnam 1997 A2

  • Session A

Players 1,2,3,…,n1,2,3,\ldots,n are seated around a table, and each has a single penny. Player 1 passes a penny to player 2, who then passes two pennies to player 3. Player 3 then passes one penny to Player 4, who passes two pennies to Player 5, and so on, players alternately passing one penny or two to the next player who still has some pennies. A player who runs out of pennies drops out of the game and leaves the table. Find an infinite set of numbers nn for which some player ends up with all nn pennies.

Curated text Kedlaya Putnam archive. Quoted with source.

Solutions

Human solution Solution 1 by Manjul Bhargava, Kiran Kedlaya and Lenny Ng

The terms of the source let olymmath link to this solution but not copy it. Read the solution (Kedlaya Putnam archive).

Locator putnam/1997/a2 · Tag YVX6XH7FX3 · Edit this page on GitHub · Keys: j next, k previous