2017 USAMO Problems/Problem 5

Revision as of 01:35, 3 May 2017 by Sujaykazi (talk | contribs) (Solution (INCOMPLETE))

Problem

Let $\mathbf{Z}$ denote the set of all integers. Find all real numbers $c > 0$ such that there exists a labeling of the lattice points $( x, y ) \in \mathbf{Z}^2$ with positive integers for which: only finitely many distinct labels occur, and for each label $i$, the distance between any two points labeled $i$ is at least $c^i$.

Solution (INCOMPLETE)

For $c\le 1,$ we can label every lattice point $1.$ For $c\le 2^{1/4},$ we can make a "checkerboard" labeling, i.e. label $(x, y)$ with $1$ if $x+y$ is even and $2$ if $x+y$ is odd. One can easily verify that these labelings satisfy the required condition. Therefore, a labeling as desired exists for all $0 < c\le 2^{1/4}.$