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Belarus 2022 geometry
Problem
Palina marked arbitrary points on the circle and drew segments between them. By an intersection point we denote any point of intersection of two drawn segments if this point is the endpoint of none of them. Find the maximal possible number of intersection points. (Mikhail Karpuk)
Solution
. Let's solve the problem for an arbitrary odd number of marked points and drawn segments. We enumerate the marked points on the circle by the numbers from to in the order of going around the circle. For each we denote by the number of drawn segments for which is an endpoint. Among all pairs of segments, at least pairs do not intersect, since they have a common endpoint . For different these pairs do not coincide, hence the number of intersection points does not exceed Let's determine the largest possible value of , for which we find the smallest possible value of the sum in brackets. It is easy to see, by opening the brackets, that the inequality is equivalent to the inequality . Therefore, the numbers , must differ at most by one. Given that , it's only possible if . Hence, the maximum possible value of is equal to . To make sure that this value is the answer for the problem, we provide an example. Let's arrange points at the vertices of a regular -gon and sequentially perform the following operation with each of them: choose a point and consider the set of intersection points of all possible segments with vertices at the remaining points. The set is finite, and the set of points on the arc containing the point is infinite. Therefore, we can choose such a new location for it that no segment connecting the point with any other point passes through the points of the set . As a result of such operations, we obtain an arrangement of points such that no three segments with vertices at these points have a common point inside the circle. Now it suffices to draw segments connecting the points with numbers and , , (we assume that the numbers are cyclic modulo , i.e. if ). In this case, any two segments that don't have a common endpoint, intersect and all are equal to two. Substituting the value into the found formula , we find the answer .
Final answer
2039189
Techniques
Combinatorial GeometryConstructions and lociInduction / smoothingCounting two waysColoring schemes, extremal arguments