MathDB
Donald and cards

Source: Tournament of Towns oral round 2016 p1

March 21, 2016
Tournament of Townsalgebralogarithm

Problem Statement

On a blackboard the product log()[]××log()[]log_{( )}[ ]\times\dots\times log_{( )}[ ] is written (there are 50 logarithms in the product). Donald has 100100 cards: [2],[3],,[51][2], [3],\dots, [51] and (52),,(101)(52),\dots,(101). He is replacing each ()() with some card of form (x)(x) and each [][] with some card of form [y][y]. Find the difference between largest and smallest values Donald can achieve.