The Fifty-Seventh William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition Saturday, December 7, 1996

A1 Find the least number such that for any two squares of combined area 1, a rectangle of area exists such that the two squares can be packed in the rectangle (without interior overlap). You may assume that the sides of the squares are parallel to the sides of the rectangle. A2 Let and be circles whose centers are 10 units apart, and whose radii are 1 and 3. Find, with proof, the locus of all points for which there exists points on and on such that is the midpoint of the line segment . A3 Suppose that each of 20 students has made a choice of anywhere from 0 to 6 courses from a total of 6 courses offered. Prove or disprove: there are 5 students and 2 courses such that all 5 have chosen both courses or all 5 have chosen neither course. A4 Let
be the set of ordered triples   of distinct elements of a nite set . Suppose that

minimal selsh sets, that is, selsh sets none of whose proper subsets is selsh. B2 Show that for every positive integer O ,

8 9 9 ; 9W  3 O : VX]V ^"[ N 3OTS :WVYXV Z"[ ' = 6 =]\===   3OTS  ' U U 9 B3 Given that L,H PH ,NN,N&PH!_&Q`0aL 3N,NN5PORQ , nd, with proof, the largest possible value, as a function of O (with ODbc3 ), of H H ; H Hd ;>=,==; H_fe H!_ ; H_H N 9
B4 For any square matrix usual power series:

, we can dene

ghji

by the

 
if and only if 
; 
; 2.  
if and only if   3.   and  ! are both in
if and only if " and  !# are both in
. Prove that there exists a one-to-one function $ from to % such % that $& (')$&#*'+$& , implies  (-
. Note: is the set of real numbers.
1. A5 If . is a prime number greater than 3 and 8 8 8 prove that the sum

9 n  S ;  _ 9 _t N g hki 0ml Y3r P s 4 _po&q O Prove or disprove: there exists a 3vuw3 matrix 8 real entries such that 9x9,yzyp{ 9 : gPhki 0 @ N

with

/02134.567

.: / of binomial coefcients is divisible by . . A6 Let +?A@ be a constant. Give a complete description, with of the of B all continuous functions BDC %F B Iset EG% proof, ;  for all such that 5 H J  0  H HK % . % Note that denotes the set of real numbers.
B1 Dene a selsh set to be a set which has its own cardi9 element. Find, with nality (number of elements) as an proof, the number of subsets of L 3MN,NN5PORQ which are

. 9#:<;

.: ;>=,==; 3

B5 Given } 
~ a nite string
of symbols and | , we9 write for the number of } s in
minus the number of | s. For example, IK||K||D0AS . We of (concall a string
balanced if every substring } IT secutive symbols of)
has S3- 3 . Thus, K||K|| is not balanced, since it contains the substring ||K|| . Find, with proof, the number of balanced strings of length O . B6 Let   4]   4N,NN] f_5#_M be the vertices of a convex polygon which contains the origin in its interior. Prove that there exist positive real numbers H and such that

    H [ M [ ;     H5 V M V ;=== ; f_54_H 0x @@z#N X X