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ICMC 2019/20 Round 1, Problem 3

Source: Imperial College Mathematics Competition 2019/20 - Round 1

August 7, 2020
college contests

Problem Statement

Consider a grid of points where each point is coloured either white or black, such that no two rows have the same sequence of colours and no two columns have the same sequence of colours. Let a table denote four points on the grid that form the vertices of a rectangle with sides parallel to those of the grid. A table is called balanced if one diagonal pair of points are coloured white and the other diagonal pair black.
Determine all possible values of k2k \geq 2 for which there exists a colouring of a k×2019k\times 2019 grid with no balanced tables.
proposed by the ICMC Problem Committee