1979 IMO Problems/Problem 2
Problem
We consider a prism which has the upper and inferior basis the pentagons: 
and 
. Each of the sides of the two pentagons and the segments 
with 
,5 is colored in red or blue. In every triangle which has all sides colored there exists one red side and one blue side. Prove that all the 10 sides of the two basis are colored in the same color.
Solution
Let us prove first that the edges 
are of the same color. Assume the contrary, and let w.l.o.g. 
be red and 
be green. Three of the segments 
, say 
,have to be of the same color, let it w.l.o.g. be red. Then 
must be green. At least one of the sides of triangle 
, say 
,must be an edge of the prism. Then looking at the triangles 
and 
we deduce that can be neither green nor red, which is acontradiction. Hence all five edges of the pentagon 
have thesame color. Similarly, all five edges of 
have the same color.We now show that the two colors are the same. Assume otherwise, i.e.,that w.l.o.g. the 
edges are painted red and the 
edges green. Let us call segments of the form 
diagonal (
and 
may be equal). We now count the diagonal segments by grouping the red segments based on their point, and the green segments based on their point. As above, the assumption that three of for fixed are red leads to a contradiction. Hence at most two diagonal segments out of each 
may be red, which counts up to at most 
red segments. Similarly, at most diagonal segments can be green. But then we can paint at most 
diagonal segments out of 
, which is a contradiction. Hence all edges in the pentagons and have the same color.
This solution was posted and copyrighted by Learner94. The original thread for this problem can be found here: [1]
See Also
| 1979 IMO (Problems) • Resources | ||
| Preceded by Problem 1 |
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 | Followed by Problem 3 |
| All IMO Problems and Solutions | ||
