MathDB

2014 Iran MO (3rd Round)

Part of Iran MO (3rd Round)

Subcontests

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Repairing a Machine

We have a machine that has an input and an output. The input is a letter from the finite set II and the output is a lamp that at each moment has one of the colors of the set C={c1,,cp}C=\{c_1,\dots,c_p\}. At each moment the machine has an inner state that is one of the nn members of finite set SS. The function o:SCo: S \rightarrow C is a surjective function defining that at each state, what color must the lamp be, and the function t:S×ISt:S \times I \rightarrow S is a function defining how does giving each input at each state changes the state. We only shall see the lamp and we have no direct information from the state of the car at current moment. In other words a machine is M=(S,I,C,o,t)M=(S,I,C,o,t) such that S,I,CS,I,C are finite, t:S×ISt:S \times I \rightarrow S , and o:SCo:S \rightarrow C is surjective. It is guaranteed that for each two different inner states, there's a sequence of inputs such that the color of the lamp after giving the sequence to the machine at the first state is different from the color of the lamp after giving the sequence to the machine at the second state. (a) The machine MM has nn different inner states. Prove that for each two different inner states, there's a sequence of inputs of length no more than npn-p such that the color of the lamp after giving the sequence to the machine at the first state is different from the color of the lamp after giving the sequence to the machine at the second state. (b) Prove that for a machine MM with nn different inner states, there exists an algorithm with no more than n2n^2 inputs that starting at any unknown inner state, at the end of the algorithm the state of the machine at that moment is known. Can you prove the above claim for n22\frac{n^2}{2}?
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