Coins 2
Tanya Khovanova
April 13, 2015
Class Discussion
Discuss problems 3 and 8 about privacy of coins.
Warm-up
Exercise 1. Ten crows were sitting on a fence. A farmer shot one. How
many were left?
Exercise 2. John was born on February 29, 1896. How many birthdays has
he celebrated properly by the age of 33?
Exercise 3. You present 100 identical coins to a judge, who knows that
among them are either one or two fake coins. All the real coins weigh the
same and all the fake coins weigh the same, but the fake coins are lighter
than the real ones.
You yourself know that there are exactly two fake coins and you know
which ones they are. Can you use a balance scale to convince the judge that
there are exactly two fake coins without revealing any information about any
particular coin?
Exercise 4. A certain hobo who is skilled at making cigarettes can turn
any 4 cigarette butts into a single cigarette. Today, this hobo has found 24
cigarette butts on the street. Assuming he smokes every cigarette he can,
how many cigarettes will he smoke today?
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Competition Practice
Exercise 5. Moscow Olympiad 1936. Find a four-digit square such that
the first two digits are the same and the last two digits are the same.
Exercise 6. Moscow Olympiad 1936. The sides of a rectangle and its
diagonal are integers. Prove that the area of the rectangle is divisible by 12.
Exercise 7. 2015 Moscow Olympiad. 7th grade. Is it possible to put
2015 natural numbers on a circle so that the ratio of any two neighbors is a
prime number?
Challenge Problems
Exercise 8. You present 100 identical coins to a judge, who knows that
among them are either two or three fake coins. All the real coins weigh the
same and all the fake coins weigh the same, but the fake coins are lighter
than the real ones.
You yourself know that there are exactly three fake coins and you know
which ones they are. Can you use a balance scale to convince the judge that
there are exactly three fake coins without revealing any information about
any particular coin?
Exercise 9. I am in a 100-story building. I have with me two glass balls. I
know that if I throw the ball out of the window, it won’t ever break if the
floor number is less than X, and it will always break if the floor number is
equal to or greater than X. Assuming that I can reuse the balls which don’t
break, find X in the minimum number of throws.
Exercise 10. I have N coins, one of them is fake and is lighter than the
others. I also have a balance with two cups. I can put some number of coins
into each cup, and the balance shows me which set of coins is lighter. Using
the balance the fewest number of times, find the fake coin. Unlike in the
previous homework this time you have to say what all of your weighings will
be before you actually do them.
Exercise 11. Suppose you mark the time when the sun is at its highest on
one day and on the next. What is the difference: exactly one day, more than
one day or less than one day? What if you chose a bright star, say Sirius,
instead of the sun? Does the answer changes? If so, how?
