2012 AIME I Problem 7

Attempt Problem 7 of the 2012 AIME I 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 2012 AIME I solutions, or check the answer key.

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7.

At each of the sixteen circles in the network below stands a student. A total of 33603360 coins are distributed among the sixteen students. All at once, all students give away all their coins by passing an equal number of coins to each of their neighbors in the network. After the trade, all students have the same number of coins as they started with. Find the number of coins the student standing at the center circle had originally.

Answer: 280
Concepts:system of equationssymmetry
Difficulty rating: 2600
Solution:

Group the sixteen circles into rings: the center, the inner ring of five, the middle ring of five, and the outer ring of five, holding p,p, q,q, r,r, and ss coins in total, respectively. The center has 55 neighbors (the inner ring); each inner student has 33 (the center and two middle students); each middle student has 44 (two inner and two outer); each outer student has 44 (two middle and two outer). A student with kk neighbors sends 1k\frac{1}{k} of their coins to each neighbor.

Summing the trades over each ring (for example, the outer ring receives a quarter of each middle student's coins twice over, which totals r2\frac{r}{2}) gives p=q3,q=p+r2,r=2q3+s2,s=r2+s2. \begin{aligned} p &= \frac{q}{3}, \\ q &= p + \frac{r}{2}, \\ r &= \frac{2q}{3} + \frac{s}{2}, \\ s &= \frac{r}{2} + \frac{s}{2}. \end{aligned}

The first equation gives q=3p,q = 3p, the second then gives r=2(qp)=4p,r = 2(q - p) = 4p, and the last gives s=r=4p.s = r = 4p. The total is p+3p+4p+4p=12p=3360,p + 3p + 4p + 4p = 12p = 3360, so the center student had p=280p = 280 coins.

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