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2020-IMOC
C2
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(1)
changing letters around circle if neighbors are the same
Source: IMOC 2020 C2
8/12/2021
There are
N
≥
3
N\ge3
N
≥
3
letters arranged in a circle, and each letter is one of
L
L
L
,
T
T
T
and
F
F
F
. For a letter, we can do the following operation: if its neighbors are the same, then change it to the same letter too; otherwise, change it so that it is different from both its neighbors. Show that for any initial state, one can perform finitely many operations to achieve a stable state. Here, a stable state means that any operation does not change any of the
N
N
N
letters. (ltf0501)
combinatorics