INMO Training Camp

Algebra
Archit Pal Singh Sachdeva
Student, Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi 110016
e-mail: antiarchit@gmail.com

1. Let p Z[x]. Prove that there exist q, r Z[x] such that pq Z[x2 ] and pr Z[x3 ].
 
2. If is a real root of the equation x5 x3 + x 2 = 0, prove that 6 = 3.
q


3. Define the sequence (an )n0 , with a0 = a1 = 97 and an+1 = an1 an + (a2n 1) a2n1 1

for all n 1. Prove that 2 + 2 + 2an is a perfect square for all n 0.

4. Find all polynomials f with integer coefficients such that for any two relatively prime positive
integers a, b, the sequence (f (an + b))n0 contains an infinite number of terms, any two of
which are relatively prime.
5. Let f Z[x] be a polynomial of degree n 2. Prove that the polynomial f (f (x)) x has at
most n integer roots.
6. Let F1 = F2 = 1, Fn+2 = Fn+1 + Fn and let f be a polynomial of degree 990 such that
f (k) = Fk for k {992, . . . , 1982}. Show that f (1983) = F1 983 1.
7. Let f be a polynomial with integer coefficients and let p be a prime such that f (0) = 0, f (1) =
1 and f (k) is congruent to 0 or 1 modulo p, for all positive integers p. Show that the degree
of p is at least p 1.
8. Let a1 , a2 , . . . , an be pairwise distinct positive integers. Prove that for any positive integer k
the number
n
X
ak
Y i
(ai aj )
i=1
j6=i

is an integer.
 
n
X
k n
9. Prove that for any real number a we have
(1)
(a k)n = n!.
k
k=0

10. Prove that

n
X

xn+1
k
Y

k=0

(xk xj )

n
X

xk .

k=0

j6=k

11. Prove that if 4m 2m + 1 is a prime number, then all prime divisors of m are smaller than 5.

12. On an n n board, there are n2 squares, n 1 of which are infected. Each second, any square
that is adjacent to at least two infected squares becomes infected. Show that at least one
square always remains uninfected.
13. Is there a set of points in space which cuts any plane in a finite non zero number of points?

14.
Prove that the number obtained by multiplying all 2100 numbers of the form 1 2
100 is the square of an integer.
15. Let a1 , a2 , . . . , a100 and b1 , b2 , . . . , b100 be 200 distinct real numbers. Consider an 100 100
table and put the number ai +bj in the (i, j) position. Suppose that the product of the entries
in each column is 1. Prove that the product of entries in each row is 1.
16. Let p > 2 be a prime number and let A = {1, 2, . . . , 2p}. Find the number of subsets of A
each having p elements and whose sum is divisible by p.
17. Consider a rectangle that can be tiled with a finite combination of 1 m and n 1 rectangles,
where m and n are positive integers. Prove that it is possible to tile this rectangle using only
1 m rectangles or n 1 rectangles.
q

3
3
3
18. Find a triplet of rational numbers a, b, c such that
2 1 = 3 a + b + 3 c.
19. The finite sequence {ak }1kn is called p-balanced if the sums
s(k, p) = ak + ak+p + ak+2p +
are all equal for k = 1, 2, . . . , p. Prove that if a sequence of 50 real numbers is 3, 5, 7, 11, 13
and 17 balanced, then all the terms are equal to 0.
20. Suppose that the set of nonnegative integers is partitioned into a finite number of infinite
arithmetical progressions with common differences r1 , r2 , . . . , rn and first terms a1 , a2 , . . . , an .
Prove that
1
1
1
+
+ +
=1
r1 r2
rn
and
a1 a2
an
n1
.
+
+ +
=
r1
r2
rn
2



p

21. If x and y are positive real numbers such that x + x2 + 1 y + y 2 + 1 = 2014, then
find the minimum possible value of x + y.
22. Prove that the number 5203 + 6753 + 7203 is composite.
23. Let p 5 be a prime number. Prove that 43 divides 7p 6p 1.
24. For any positive integer n find the number of ordered n-tuples of integers (a1 , a2 , . . . , an ) such
that
a1 + a2 + + an n2 and a21 + a22 + + a2n n3 + 1.
h i
25. Given real numbers x1 , x2 , . . . , x10 0,
such that
2
sin2 x1 + sin2 x2 + + sin2 x1 0 = 1.
Prove that
3(sin x1 + sin x2 + sin x10 ) cos x1 + cos x2 + cos x1 0.