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Partition of set {1,2,3,...,3n} into n subsets {a,b,c}

Source: Serbian National Olympiad 2013, Problem 4

April 8, 2013
inductionpigeonhole principlecombinatorics proposedcombinatorics

Problem Statement

Determine all natural numbers nn for which there is a partition of {1,2,...,3n}\{1,2,...,3n\} in nn pairwise disjoint subsets of the form {a,b,c}\{a,b,c\}, such that numbers bab-a and cbc-b are different numbers from the set {n1,n,n+1}\{n-1, n, n+1\}.