Auxiliary configuration
MOPSS
7 May 2025
Mathematics Olympiad
Problem Solving Sessions
MOPSS
Department of Mathematics
IISER Bhopal
https://jpsaha.github.io/MOTP/MOPSS/
Suggested readings
• Evan Chen’s advice On reading solutions, available at https://blog.
evanchen.cc/2017/03/06/on-reading-solutions/.
• Evan Chen’s Advice for writing proofs/Remarks on English, available at
https://web.evanchen.cc/handouts/english/english.pdf.
• Notes on proofs by Evan Chen from OTIS Excerpts [Che25, Chapter 1].
• Tips for writing up solutions by Edward Barbeau, available at https:
//www.math.utoronto.ca/barbeau/writingup.pdf.
• Evan Chen discusses why math olympiads are a valuable experience for
high schoolers in the post on Lessons from math olympiads, available at
https://blog.evanchen.cc/2018/01/05/lessons-from-math-olympiads/.
List of problems and examples
1.1 Example (India RMO 1998 P6) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Example (India RMO 2023a P4) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
§1 Auxiliary configuration
Example 1.1 (India RMO 1998 P6). Given the 7-element set A = {a, b, c, d, e, f, g},
find a collection T of 3-element subsets of A such that each pair of elements
from A occurs exactly in one of the subsets of T .
Walkthrough — With some trial-and-error, one can find the following
example
T = {{a, b, c}, {a, d, e}, {a, f, g}, {b, d, f }, {b, e, g}, {c, d, g}, {c, e, f }},
and then check that it has the desired properties.
Suppose we were not able to make a guess for such a set T a . In that situation,
an approach would be to assume that such a collection T exists, and then try
to find out some additional properties of T using the hypothesis that T has the
stated properties.
• This approach has the disadvantage that the argument would rely on the
assumption that such a set T exists, which may not be the case b .
• However, the advantage is that we may be able to make further conclusions
about such a putative set T , which may in turn allow us to correctly
determine such a set T (or even all such sets T ), or to even conclude that
no such T exists (of course, depending on the problem).
(a) Show that the size of T is equal to 7.
(b) Relabel the elements of A as 1, 2, . . . , 7.
(c) Assume that T contains {1, 2, 3}.
(d) Show that some of the 3-subsets lying in T , other than {1, 2, 3}, intersects
with {1, 2, 3} at exactly one element.
(e) Reordering the elements of A if necessary, prove that T contains {1, 4, 5}.
(f ) Next, prove that T contains {1, 6, 7}, {2, 4, 6}, {3, 4, 7}, {2, 5, 7}, {3, 5, 6},
and conclude that
T = {{1, 2, 3}, {1, 4, 5}, {1, 6, 7}, {2, 4, 6}, {3, 4, 7}, {2, 5, 7}, {3, 5, 6}}.
(g) Wait! We have only proved that a putative T is equal to the above up to
a reordering of the elements of A. This does not guarantee the existence
of any collection T having the desired properties.
(h) Thus, it still remains to find a collection T with the prescribed properties.
Does the above collection of 3-subsets of A work?
2
1 Auxiliary configuration Typos may be reported to [email protected].
a Yes, do assume that we were not that clever!
b The problem, as stated, indicates the existence of such a T , but this does not suffice.
Solution 1. Suppose T is a set consisting of some size 3-subsets of A such that
any size two subset of A is contained in exactly one element of T . Consider
the set
X = {(P, Q) | P ⊆ Q, |P | = 2, Q ∈ T }.
Note that X contains precisely 3 · |T | many elements. For each subset P of
A of size two, there is precisely one element (P, Q) in X. In other words, the
map (P, Q) 7→ P from X → A2 is a bijection. It follows that |T | = 13 72 = 7,
provided there is a set T with the stated properties.
Note that if such a set T exists and it contains {a, b, c}, then we claim that
some of the remaining 3-subsets lying in T has nonempty intersection with
{a, b, c}. Otherwise, the remaining subsets would be subsets of A \ {a, b, c},
and hence T would contain at most 1 + 7−3 3 = 1 + 4 < 7 = |T | elements. This
proves the claim. Hence, some of the 3-subsets lying in T , other than {a, b, c},
intersects with {a, b, c} at exactly one element. 1
Let’s relabel the elements of A as 1, 2, . . . , 7 for simplicity. The set T contains
{1, 2, 3} and some of the remaining elements of T intersects with {1, 2, 3} at
exactly one element. By reordering the elements of A if necessary, we assume
that an element of T intersects {1, 2, 3} at {1}. Note that this element contains
none of 2, 3. By reordering the elements of A once again if required, we assume
that T contains {1, 4, 5}. Since T contains an element containing {1, 6}, it
follows that {1, 6, 7} lies in T . Since T contains an element containing {2, 4},
it follows that {2, 4, 6} or {2, 4, 7} lies in T . Reordering 6, 7 if necessary, we
assume that T contains {2, 4, 6}. Since T contains an element containing {3, 4},
it follows that {3, 4, i} lies in T for some 1 ≤ i ≤ 7 with i ∈ / {1, 2, 5, 6}, i.e.,
T contains {3, 4, 7}. Since T contains an element containing {2, 5}, it follows
that {2, 5, 7} lies in T . Since T contains an element containing {3, 5}, it follows
that {3, 5, 6} lies in T . Using that |T | = 7, it follows that
T = {{1, 2, 3}, {1, 4, 5}, {1, 6, 7}, {2, 4, 6}, {3, 4, 7}, {2, 5, 7}, {3, 5, 6}}.
Note that the above collection does have the desired properties. ■
1 Having proved this statement, one may realize that it is much easier to establish! Indeed,
such a collection T is nonempty, and hence contains the set {a, b, c} up to a reordering of
the elements of A. By hypothesis, some element of T contains {a, d}, and that element
intersects with {a, b, c} at precisely one element. This argument can be used to replace
the longer argument above. It should be noted that the above argument introduces a
crucial idea, namely, to determine the number of certain objects (here the number of
elements of T ), it is often helpful to take a detour by counting the number of objects of
another type (here the number of pairs of the form (P, Q) satisfying suitable conditions).
A similar idea is discussed in ??.
Some style files, prepared by Evan Chen, have been adapted here. 3
7 May 2025 https://jpsaha.github.io/MOTP/
Remark. The above argument also shows that up to a reordering of the
elements of A, such a set T is equal to
{{1, 2, 3}, {1, 4, 5}, {1, 6, 7}, {2, 4, 6}, {3, 4, 7}, {2, 5, 7}, {3, 5, 6}}.
Example 1.2 (India RMO 2023a P4). The set X of N four-digit numbers
formed from the digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 satisfies the following condition: for
any two different digits from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, there exists a number in X which
contains both of them. Determine the smallest possible value of N .
First, let’s work on it. Let X be a set satisfying the required conditions and
it has the minimum cardinality among such sets. Given an element x of X, we
may assume that x has distinct digits. Otherwise, any repetition of a digit can
be replaced by an integer from {1, . . . , 8} which does not occur as a digit in
x. Note that after this modification of an element of X, the modified set has
the same cardinality as the initial set, and it continues to have the property
that for any two different digits from {1, . . . , 8}, there exists a number in the
modified set which contains both of them. Thus, modifying the elements of X
if required, we may assume that the digits of the elements of X are distinct.
By the hypothesis on the cardinality of X, it follows that no two elements of
X are equal up to permutation. So, the elements of X can be considered as
subsets of {1, 2, . . . , 8} of size 4, and X can be thought as a set of certain size
4 subsets of {1, . . . , 8} such that any size two subsets of {1, . . . , 8} is contained
in some element of X.
Consider the set
A := {(P, Q) | |P | = 2, Q ∈ X, P ⊆ Q}.
Note that the size of A is 42 |X| = 6|X|. By hypothesis, it follows that A
contains at least 82 = 28 elements. Hence, X contains at least 5 elements.
With some effort, one can find the following set
{{1, 2, 3, 4}, {5, 6, 7, 8}, {1, 5, 2, 6}, {3, 7, 4, 8}, {1, 7, 8, 2}, {3, 5, 6, 4}}.
So far, we have proved that X contains at least 5 elements. Based on this
information and the above example only (possibly together with the fact that
we are not able to come up with a set consisting of five size 4 subsets of
{1, . . . , 8} having the stated property), we are not in a position to conclude
that X has cardinality 6.
In fact, a modification of the above argument does prove that |X| ≥ 6.
Indeed, consider the set
A′ := {(P, Q) | |P | = 1, Q ∈ X, P ⊆ Q}.
Note that the size of A′ is 4|X|. Also note that for any element i ∈ {1, . . . , 8}, it
is contained in at least three elements of X. Indeed, there are 7 size two subsets
4 The content posted here and at this blog by Evan Chen are quite useful.
1 Auxiliary configuration Typos may be reported to [email protected].
of {1, . . . , 8} containing i, and the union of no two size 4 subsets of {1, . . . , 8}
contains all the size two subsets of {1, . . . , 8} containing i. By hypothesis, it
follows that A′ contains at least 8 · 3 = 24 elements. Hence, X contains at least
6 elements.
Note that the size of A′ is 4|X|. Also note that for any element i ∈ {1, . . . , 8},
it is contained in at least three elements of X. Indeed, there are 7 size two
subsets of {1, . . . , 8} containing i, and the union of no two size 4 subsets
of {1, . . . , 8} contains all the size two subsets of {1, . . . , 8} containing i. By
hypothesis, it follows that A′ contains at least 8 · 3 = 24 elements. Hence, X
contains at least 6 elements. ♣
Solution 2. Let X be a set satisfying the required conditions and it has the
minimum cardinality among such sets. Given an element x of X, we may
assume that x has distinct digits. Otherwise, any repetition of a digit can
be replaced by an integer from {1, . . . , 8} which does not occur as a digit in
x. Note that after this modification of an element of X, the modified set has
the same cardinality as the initial set, and it continues to have the property
that for any two different digits from {1, . . . , 8}, there exists a number in the
modified set which contains both of them. Thus, modifying the elements of X
if required, we may assume that the digits of the elements of X are distinct.
By the hypothesis on the cardinality of X, it follows that no two elements of
X are equal up to permutation. So, the elements of X can be considered as
subsets of {1, 2, . . . , 8} of size 4, and X can be thought as a set of certain size
4 subsets of {1, . . . , 8} such that any size two subsets of {1, . . . , 8} is contained
in some element of X.
Consider the set
A := {(P, Q) | |P | = 1, Q ∈ X, P ⊆ Q}.
Note that the size of A is 4|X|. Also note that for any element i ∈ {1, . . . , 8}, it
is contained in at least three elements of X. Indeed, there are 7 size two subsets
of {1, . . . , 8} containing i, and the union of no two size 4 subsets of {1, . . . , 8}
contains all the size two subsets of {1, . . . , 8} containing i. By hypothesis, it
follows that A contains at least 8 · 3 = 24 elements. Hence, X contains at least
6 elements.
Note that the set
{{1, 2, 3, 4}, {5, 6, 7, 8}, {1, 5, 2, 6}, {3, 7, 4, 8}, {1, 7, 8, 2}, {3, 5, 6, 4}}
has size 6 and it consists of certain size 4 subsets of {1, . . . , 8} such that any
size two subset of {1, . . . , 8} is contained in one such size 4 subset.
This proves that the smallest possible value of N is 6. ■
Some style files, prepared by Evan Chen, have been adapted here. 5
7 May 2025 https://jpsaha.github.io/MOTP/
References
[Che25] Evan Chen. The OTIS Excerpts. Available at https : / / web .
evanchen.cc/excerpts.html. 2025, pp. vi+289 (cited p. 1)
6 The content posted here and at this blog by Evan Chen are quite useful.
