The hardest problem on the hardest test

A difficult Putnam question with an elegant solution.

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Solution to the puzzle mentioned at the end

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A different write-up of this solution:

1992 Putnam with this problem:

A problem with a similar flavor came up on the 2005 Putnam A6. Give it a try! The solution for that problem, by the way, was written by Calvin Lin, a friend of mine who works at Brilliant. Small world!

Thanks to these viewers for their contributions to translations

Hebrew: Omer Tuchfeld

Korean: tebaioioo

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Animations largely made using manim, a scrappy open source python library.

If you want to check it out, I feel compelled to warn you that it's not the most well-documented tool, and has many other quirks you might expect in a library someone wrote with only their own use in mind.

Music by Vincent Rubinetti.

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If you want to contribute translated subtitles or to help review those that have already been made by others and need approval, you can click the gear icon in the video and go to subtitles/cc, then "add subtitles/cc". I really appreciate those who do this, as it helps make the lessons accessible to more people.

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