Possible values of t/s for stones in buckets
Source: APMO 2020 Problem 5
June 9, 2020
algebranumber theoryAPMOalgorithm
Problem Statement
Let be a fixed integer. The number is written times on a blackboard. Below the blackboard, there are two buckets that are initially empty. A move consists of erasing two of the numbers and , replacing them with the numbers and , then adding one stone to the first bucket and stones to the second bucket. After some finite number of moves, there are stones in the first bucket and stones in the second bucket, where and are positive integers. Find all possible values of the ratio .