Stanford

University Mathematics Camp (SUMaC) 2023

Admissions Exam
For use by SUMaC 2023 applicants only. Not for distribution.

v Solve as many of the following problems as you can. Your work on these
problems together with your grades in school, teacher recommendations,
and answers to the questions on the application form, will be used to
evaluate your SUMaC application. Although SUMaC is very selective with
a competitive applicant pool, correct answers on every problem are not
required for admission.

v There is no time limit for this exam other than the application deadline.

v Please include clear, detailed explanations for all solutions; numerical

answers or formulas with no explanation are not useful for evaluating your
application.

v In the event you are unable to solve a problem completely, you are
encouraged to write up any partial progress that you feel captures your
ideas leading toward a solution.

v You will need to create a separate document with your solutions and
explanations. This document may be typed or handwritten, as long as the
final document you upload is legible for our review.

v None of these problems require a calculator or computer, and you are

encouraged not to use computational tools or computer programs for your
solutions.

v You are expected to do your own work without the use of any outside
sources (books, teacher or parent help, internet search, etc.). If you
recognize one of the problems from another source, or if you receive any
assistance, please indicate this in your write up.

v Please do not share these problems or your solutions with anyone.

1. Tell us something interesting about the number 2023 or explain why you think it is a completely
uninteresting number. This is a purely subjective open-ended question with no wrong answers.

2. Consider the following puzzle. Five coins are arranged around the vertices of a pentagon. The goal
for this puzzle is to go from the starting configuration below

to a goal configuration that is a rearrangement of the coins around the pentagon. There are two
allowable moves that can be applied repeatedly in any order:
• Move X: you can rotate the coins around the pentagon, and
• Move Y: you can rotate the coins in the upper triangle of the pentagon.

For example, two applications of move X from the starting position results in

Then one application of move Y to the above results in

For each of the following, show that the given configuration can be obtained with a combination of
moves X and Y, or prove no combination of moves X and Y lead to the given configuration:

(a)
 (b)

3. Consider an 𝑚 × 𝑛 grid, that is, a grid with 𝑚 rows and 𝑛 columns, where 𝑚 and 𝑛 are relatively
prime (that is, where 𝑚 and 𝑛 have no prime factors in common). For example, here is a 9 × 10 grid:

Each one-by-one square in the grid represents a hole, and we fill in some of these holes as follows.
For each integer 𝑑 > 1 that shares a prime factor with 𝑚, we fill in all holes in row 𝑑, and for each
integer 𝑑 > 1 that shares a prime factor with 𝑛, we fill in all holes in column 𝑑 (that haven’t already
been filled in). For example, in the 9 × 10 grid above, we fill in the holes as follows:

We filled in the third, sixth, and ninth rows since 3, 6, and 9 are integers greater than 1 that share the
prime factor 3 with 9, and we filled in second, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth and tenth columns since 2, 4,
5, 6, 8 and 10 all share a prime factor with 10. In this example, there are 24 holes (white squares) left
over. Define the hole number of a grid to be the number of holes (white squares) that remain after
the rest of the grid is filled in according to the above procedure, so the hole number of the above grid
is 24. The following two grids have hole number 8.

We say that two grids are hole equivalent if they have the same hole numbers. So, the above two
grids (4 × 5 and 3 × 5) are hole equivalent. Let ℎ! be the number of 𝑚 × 𝑛 grids with 𝑚 < 𝑛 and 𝑘
holes; that is ℎ! is the number of hole equivalent grids with 𝑘 holes (and fewer rows than columns).

(i) What is the smallest value of 𝑘 > 0 such that ℎ! = 0. That is, what is the smallest positive
𝑘 such that there are no 𝑚 × 𝑛 grids with 𝑘 holes.
(ii) What is ℎ" ?
(iii) What is the smallest value of 𝑘 such that ℎ! > ℎ" ?
4. (a) Find all non-empty finite sets of integers A and B with the following properties:

(i) Whenever 𝑥 is in 𝐴, 𝑥 + 1 is in 𝐵.

(ii) Whenever 𝑥 is in 𝐵, 𝑥 # − 4 is in 𝐴.

(b) Find all positive integers 𝑎 and 𝑏 such that there are non-empty finite sets A and B with the
property that whenever x is in A, 𝑥 + 𝑎 is in B, and whenever x is in B, 𝑥 # − 𝑏 is in A.

5. Suppose there are several neighboring ant colonies where ants move from one ant colony to another if
their current ant colony becomes overcrowded.

In our very simple scenario, there are just four ant colonies, and once per day the colony evaluates its
current situation, and the ants migrate to neighboring colonies according to the following rules:

(i) If there are three or more ants in a colony, then three ants leave that colony, adding
exactly one ant to each of the neighboring three colonies. Colonies may have ants both
coming in and leaving in a single migration cycle.

(ii) If there are fewer than three ants in a colony, then none leave that colony, although some
may join from the neighboring colonies.

For example, if represents the number of ants in each colony, then after one day’s

migration, it will be and the next day it will be .

And if the number of ants in each colony is given by then after one day it

will be .

The first case, , is stable; the number of ants in each colony is constant day after day.

The second case oscillates between and , day after day. In general, we

say that a configuration of the number of ants in the four colonies oscillates if the number of ants
in the colonies cycles through different configurations, returning to the original configuration
after finitely many days.
 (a) Show that every starting configuration of ant colonies is eventually stable or eventually
oscillates.

(b) Suppose a single migration changes the number of ants in one of the four colonies. Is it
possible then that the number of ants stays the same in one of the other colonies during
that same day’s migration?

(c) Show that if the total number of ants across all four colonies is greater than or equal to
15, then the colonies are either in a stable configuration, or they will reach a stable
configuration in finitely many migrations. Find a configuration with a total of 14 ants that
oscillates between two or more configurations.

(d) What is the maximum value of 𝑘 such that some initial configuration cycles through 𝑘
distinct configurations and returns to the original configuration for the first time after 𝑘
days?

6. Consider the following game: you are given a sequence of the letters A and B, and you are given the
following replacement rules that allow you to replace some combinations of letters with different
combinations of letters.

(i) AA can be removed or inserted anywhere in the sequence.

(ii) BBB can be removed or inserted anywhere in the sequence.

(iii) ABA can be replaced with B, and B can be replaced with ABA.

As an example of a round of play, consider starting with the word BABB. Using (1), we can insert AA
at the beginning of the sequence to get AABABB. Then using (3), we can replace ABA in the middle
of the sequence with B to get ABBB. Then using (2), we can remove BBB to get just A.

(a) Show that rules (i), (ii) and (iii) allow you to transform AB to BA.

(b) Show that you cannot transform A to B using rules (i), (ii), and (iii).

(c) Use part (a) to show that rules (i), (ii) and (iii) allow any finite sequence of ‘A’s and ‘B’s
to be transformed to one of the following A, B, AB, BB, ABB or <>, where <> is the
empty word; that is, <> is a word with no letters.

(d) Consider the situation where (iii) is replaced by

(iii*) ABA can be replaced with BB, and BB can be replaced with ABA.

Show that (i), (ii), and (iii*) do not allow you to transform AB to BA.

(e) Show that even though AB cannot be replaced by BA, any finite sequence of `A’s and ‘B’s
can still be transformed to one of the following A, B, AB, BB, ABB or <>, with rules (i),
(ii) and (iii*).