2001 AIME II Problem 5

Attempt Problem 5 of the 2001 AIME II below, then check your answer against the professionally curated solution from LIVE by Po-Shen Loh. You can also try the full timed exam, view all 2001 AIME II solutions, or check the answer key.

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5.

A set of positive numbers has the triangle property if it has three distinct elements that are the lengths of the sides of a triangle whose area is positive. Consider sets {4,5,6,,n}\{4, 5, 6, \ldots, n\} of consecutive positive integers, all of whose ten-element subsets have the triangle property. What is the largest possible value of n?n?

Answer: 253
Concepts:triangle inequalityFibonacciextremal argument
Difficulty rating: 2390
Solution:

Suppose a ten-element set {a1<a2<<a10}\{a_1 \lt a_2 \lt \cdots \lt a_{10}\} has no triangle. Then every three elements fail the strict triangle inequality; in particular ai+2ai+1+aia_{i+2} \ge a_{i+1} + a_i for each i.i. Starting from a14a_1 \ge 4 and a25,a_2 \ge 5, this forces a39,a_3 \ge 9, a414,a_4 \ge 14, a523,a_5 \ge 23, a637,a_6 \ge 37, a760,a_7 \ge 60, a897,a_8 \ge 97, a9157,a_9 \ge 157, and a10254.a_{10} \ge 254.

So if n253,n \le 253, no ten-element subset of {4,5,,n}\{4, 5, \ldots, n\} can avoid triangles, since its largest element would have to be at least 254.254. Conversely, taking equality throughout, the subset {4,5,9,14,23,\{4, 5, 9, 14, 23, 37,60,97,157,254}37, 60, 97, 157, 254\} of {4,5,,254}\{4, 5, \ldots, 254\} has no triangle.

Therefore the largest possible value is n=253.n = 253.

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