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Brazil counting and probability
Problem
A figure on a computer screen shows points on a sphere, no four coplanar. Some pairs of points are joined by segments. Each segment is colored red or blue. For each point there is a key that switches the colors of all segments with that point as endpoint. For every three points there is a sequence of key presses that makes the three segments between them red. Show that it is possible to make all the segments on the screen red. Find the smallest number of key presses that can turn all the segments red, starting from the worst case.
Solution
Consider three of the points. The parity of the number of blue segments of the triangle with these points as vertices doesn't change while switching the keys. Since it is possible to make all three segments red, the number of blue segments in each triangle is even.
Let be one of the points. Let be the set of points connected to by red segments and be the set of points connected to by blue segments. Let . So and are both red and thus is red. Now consider . Then and are both blue and thus is red. Finally, consider and . is red and is blue, so is blue. Put in . All this reasoning shows that segments in the same set are red and segments connecting points in different sets are blue.
Switching all points in set will make all segments red. Indeed, all segments in will change twice, one time from each of its edges, all segments connecting points from and will change once, turning from blue to red and segments in won't change. This proves the first part.
For the second part, notice first that one needs to switch each point at most once. Let and . If we switch points from and points from we change at most blue segments. Suppose without loss of generality that . Then . So the number of key presses is at most and, in the worst case, . This number is needed to make all segments red if .
Let be one of the points. Let be the set of points connected to by red segments and be the set of points connected to by blue segments. Let . So and are both red and thus is red. Now consider . Then and are both blue and thus is red. Finally, consider and . is red and is blue, so is blue. Put in . All this reasoning shows that segments in the same set are red and segments connecting points in different sets are blue.
Switching all points in set will make all segments red. Indeed, all segments in will change twice, one time from each of its edges, all segments connecting points from and will change once, turning from blue to red and segments in won't change. This proves the first part.
For the second part, notice first that one needs to switch each point at most once. Let and . If we switch points from and points from we change at most blue segments. Suppose without loss of generality that . Then . So the number of key presses is at most and, in the worst case, . This number is needed to make all segments red if .
Final answer
floor(n/2)
Techniques
Invariants / monovariantsColoring schemes, extremal arguments