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Vietnam counting and probability

Problem

A person wants to plant two different kinds of tree on a plot tabular grid size (each square planted one tree). A planting way is called impressive if two following conditions are satisfied

i) The number of trees in each kind is equal.

ii) The difference between the number of two kinds of tree in each column and each row is at least and respectively.

a) Find an impressive planting way when .

b) Prove that if there exists an impressive planting way then is divisible by 4.
Solution
For convenience, consider this problem on a table and write or in each square to represent the trees.

a) For a table, the table below is satisfied.
AAAB
AABA
ABBB
BABB
It is clear that we can merge such tables to get a table satisfying a).
AAABAAAB
AABAAABA
ABBBABBB
BABBBABB
AAABAAAB
AABAAABA
ABBBABBB
BABBBABB
b) Assume that there exists an impressive planting way for a plot. We will prove that all the equalities in 2) and 3) must attain.

Call a row or a column positive (or negative) if the sum of all of its elements is positive or negative. Let be the numbers of positive and negative rows; similarly, let be the numbers of positive and negative columns. Clearly, the number in the square which is the intersection of positive column and negative row or the intersection of negative column and positive row has different sign with its column or its row. Call a number bad if it has different sign with the column or the row that contains it. Denote to be the number of bad numbers, we have . Denote and , we obtain that



Similarly, we have . Therefore,



The second given condition implies that in every positive row, there are at least numbers and not more than numbers .

The first condition follows that there are exactly numbers in this table, thus there are at most numbers in the negative rows. Let be the numbers of squares that contains the number which has different sign with the row containing it, we obtain that



Similarly, we have . Hence,



Similarly, denote to be the number of squares that contains the number which has different sign with the column containing it, we also have . Therefore, .

Combining with (1), the inequality becomes equality. In that case, by the condition (2), it is clear that there are exactly numbers and numbers or vice versa.

Thus, is the multiple of 4, and the same proof for .
Final answer
a) Tile the grid by repeating the given four by four pattern across the entire two thousand sixteen by two thousand sixteen grid; this yields an impressive planting. b) If an impressive planting exists, both m and n must be divisible by 4.

Techniques

Counting two waysColoring schemes, extremal arguments