Sophie 2024 Application Solutions

Sophie Fellowship

Problem 1
Let ABC be a triangle and X be a point on side BC. Let the line parallel to AB
through X be ℓ. The intersection of the tangent to circumcircle of ABC through A
and line ℓ is point Y . Prove that AXCY is cyclic.

Proof. Notice that since Y A is tangent to the circumcircle, ∠Y AC = ∠ABC. But

since AB is parallel to ℓ, we have that ∠ABC = ∠Y XC. In particular, we have that
∠Y XC = ∠Y AC and so the four points are concyclic.

Problem 2
We call a set of positive integers S good, if for any two distinct subsets T1 and T2 of
S, the sum of elements in T1 and T2 are different. For every n, does there exist a N
such that every set of N positive integers has a good subset of size n?

Proof. We show that such an N exists for each n by induction on n. For the base case,
note that any set of 1 element is good, so in particular if N = 1 we can take the element
in the given set as the element in our subset and this subset is good.

For the induction step, let’s say we have that there exists an N such that for any
set with N elements, there is a good subset with n elements. Then we show that if
N ′ = N + 3n + 1 then any subset with N ′ elements will have a good subset of size n + 1.

To show this, consider a set of N + 3n + 1 elements. From the first N , we can se-
lect n such that they form a good subset.

Let these elements be S = {a1 , a2 , . . . , an }. We want an element t such that for any two
subsets S1 and S2 of S.
X X X X
t+ x ̸= x =⇒ t ̸= x− x
x∈S1 x∈S2 x∈S2 x∈S1

To find such a t, We consider all elements of the form

n
X
xi ai
i=1

where xi ∈
/ {−1, 0, 1}. In particular if t is not in this set, then t can be added to the set,
and since there are only 3n elements of the given form, setting N ′ = N + 3n + 1 will
guarantee the existence of a required such element t. Thus the set {a1 , a2 , . . . , an , t} is
good.

1
Sophie Fellowship Sophie 2024 Application Solutions

Remark. Several people were unable to understand the problem statement correctly
- the question was also meant to test math-comprehension skills of the applicant.

Problem 3
Prove that all positive integers n can be written as the difference of two positive
integers a and b such that each of them have the same number of distinct prime
divisors (for example, 12 has 2 distinct prime divisors).

Proof. If the number n is even, note that a = 2n and b = n have the same number of
divisors.

On the other hand, if n is odd, consider the smallest odd prime p such that p does not
divide n. Consider a = pn and b = (p − 1)n. The number of distinct prime divisors of a
is one more than the number of prime divisors of n, while the number of prime divisors
of b is also one more than the number of prime divisors than n (since 2 divides p − 1 but
all other prime factors divide n already).

Remark. Several applicants tried to use unproven conjectures to solve this problem.

Problem 4
Find all positive reals x1 , x2 · · · , x100 such that
1 1
x2i + =1 x2i−1 + =4
x2i+1 x2i

for 1 ≤ i ≤ 50 where indices are taken modulo 100 (so x100+k = xk )

Proof. Notice that by AM-GM,

r 
1 x2i
1 = x2i + ≥2
x2i+1 x2i+1
r 
1 x2i−1
4 = x2i−1 + ≥2
x2i x2i
Multiplying all equations together, we get that

450 ≥ 2100 · 1
1
In particular, equality holds so it must hold at each step which forces that x2i = 2 and
x2i+1 = 2 must hold for each i.

Problem 5
Find all functions f : N → N such that for all positive integers a ≤ b we have that

• f (a) ≤ f (b)

• f (a) + f (b) has the same number of divisors as a + b.

2
Sophie Fellowship Sophie 2024 Application Solutions

Proof. We begin with the claim that if p is a prime, f (2p−2 ) = 2p−2 .

Notice that if we set a = b = 2p−2 in the second equation, 2f (2p−2 ) has the same
number of divisors as 2p−1 i.e. it has p divisors. In particular, this implies that the
number of divisors of 2f (2p−2 ) is also p, which forces that f (2p−2 ) = 2p−2 .

We now show that f (x) ̸= f (x + 1) for any x. Notice that this means f (x) < f (x + 1) by
the first condition.

To do so, let’s assume for the sake of contradiction that f (x) = f (x + 1). Set d such that
x+d is a large prime p. By setting a = x and b = d, we have that f (x)+f (d) has two prime
divisors. On the other hand, setting a = x+1, b = d gives that f (x+1)+f (d) = f (x)+f (d)
should have at least three prime divisors (since p + 1 is not prime). This leads to a
contradiction.

Thus we have that f is strictly increasing and has arbitrarily large fixed points. In
particular, we know that if p1 and p2 are consecutive primes,

2p1 −2 = f (2p1 −2 ) < f (2p1 −2 + 1) < · · · < f (2p2 −2 − 1) < f (2p2 −2 ) = 2p2 −2

And this forces that f (x) = x for each number in this range due to size constraints. Since
we have that f (1) = 1 by setting p = 2, this shows that f (x) = x for all x ≥ 1.

Problem 6
Let ABC be a triangle with feet of altitudes D, E and F . Let K be a point in the
plane. The feet of perpendiculars from K onto the altitudes AD, BE, CF of the
triangle are P , Q and R. Given that the lengths AP = BQ = CR, prove that there
are exactly four such possible points K. (The lengths are not directed.)

Proof. Draw parallels ℓ1 , ℓ2 , ℓ3 to each of AB, BC, CA through the opposite vertices.
Notice that length AP is equal to the distance of K from each of ℓ1 , ℓ2 , ℓ3 . (To show this,
let the foot of K on ℓ1 be X. Then KP AX is a rectangle so AP = KX.)

So we need points K such that K is equidistant from the three lines ℓ1 , ℓ2 , ℓ3 . But
notice that this is simply the set consisting of the incentre and three excentres of the
triangle formed by the three lines (i.e. the anti-medial triangle) and thus we are done.

Problem 7
Vikram chooses a positive integer at most 144 and Betal tries to guess the number.
Betal can choose a subset of {1, 2, · · · , 144} and asks Vikram whether the number is
in that subset. If Vikram answers “yes”, Betal needs to pay him 2 coins and if he
answers “no”, Betal pays 1 coin. Find the minimum number of coins Betal needs to
determine Vikram’s number.

Proof. Call a set k-coinable if there exists a way to determine Vikram’s number using
at most k coins. Let f (k) denote the set with largest possible cardinality that is k-coinable.

Now let’s say that the set we begin with is S (and is k-coinable) and Betal uses the set

3
Sophie Fellowship Sophie 2024 Application Solutions

A on his first move. We must have that the set A is k − 2-coinable and set S − A is
k − 1-coinable. This in turn means that

f (k) ≤ f (k − 1) + f (k − 2)

On the other hand, if set S has cardinality f (k − 1) + f (k − 2) we can pick a set A of

cardinality f (k − 2) and induct. This shows that

f (k) = f (k − 1) + f (k − 2)

Thus, f (k) follows the Fibonacci recurrence. Solving the problem for base cases let’s us
conclude that when the set has 144 elements, 11 coins are required.

Remark. A common mistake was that many people assumed that binary search
leads to the required answer without proof. While it is an efficient approach, it does
not give the optimal answer.

Problem 8
For a positive integer c, define the sequence an by the following recurrence relation:
a0 = c and
√
an+1 = ⌊an + an ⌋
Prove that there are infinitely many perfect squares in the sequence.

Proof. We show that there is at least one perfect square in the sequence regardless of what
c we start with. Notice that this finishes since if ak is a perfect square, we can think of a
new recurrence relation where c = ak+1 i.e. we begin from the k + 1th element of the origi-
nal sequence. Now this sequence too has a perfect square, and repeating this we can finish.

Let’s say the first term in the sequence is of the form n2 + k where 1 ≤ k ≤ 2n.
We take two cases based on the size of k.

• Case 1: 1 ≤ k ≤ n. We can show that

a2t = (n + t)2 + k − t

with a simple induction on t. In particular this means that a2 k is a perfect square.

• Case 2: n + 1 ≤ k ≤ 2n. Notice that a1 will be of the form described in case 1 (or
it will be a perfect square itself), from where we can finish as above.