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geometry

Problem

Let a set of 2004 points in the plane be given, no three of which are collinear. Let denote the set of all lines (extended indefinitely in both directions) determined by pairs of points from the set. Show that it is possible to colour the points of with at most two colours, such that for any points of , the number of lines in which separate from is odd if and only if and have the same colour.

Note: A line separates two points and if and lie on opposite sides of with neither point on .

problem
Solution
Choose any point from and color it, say, blue. Let be the number of lines from that separates and . Then color any other point blue if is odd and red if is even.

Now it remains to show that and have the same color if and only if is odd for all and , which is equivalent to proving that is always odd. For this purpose, consider the seven numbered regions defined by lines , and :



Any line that do not pass through any of points meets the sides of triangle in an even number of points (two sides or no sides), so these lines do not affect the parity of . Hence the only lines that need to be considered are the ones that pass through one of vertices and cuts the opposite side in the triangle .

Let be the number of points in region , , and excluded, as depicted in the diagram. Then the lines through that separate and are the lines passing through and points from regions 1, 4, and 7. The same applies for and regions 2, 5, and 7; and and regions 3, 6, and 7. Therefore



and the result follows.

Techniques

Constructions and lociColoring schemes, extremal argumentsInvariants / monovariants