MathDB
Making triangles out of sticks

Source: 239 2009 S3

July 29, 2020

Problem Statement

200200 sticks are given whose lengths are 1,2,4,,21991, 2, 4, \ldots , 2^{199}. What is the smallest number of sticks needed to be broken so that out of all the resulting sticks, several triangles could be created, if each stick could be broken only once, and each triangle can be created out of only three sticks?