MathDB
ASU 561 Commonwealth of Independent States 1992 infiinte board, mxn rectangle

Source:

August 14, 2019
infinite boardcombinatoricsminimumrectangle

Problem Statement

Given an infinite sheet of square ruled paper. Some of the squares contain a piece. A move consists of a piece jumping over a piece on a neighbouring square (which shares a side) onto an empty square and removing the piece jumped over. Initially, there are no pieces except in an mxnm x n rectangle (m,n>1m, n > 1) which has a piece on each square. What is the smallest number of pieces that can be left after a series of moves?