Combinatorics · Invariants · Parity · Sign tables · Existence and construction

Problem 5, 2013

RegionalOpen answer

Let \(n \geq 2\) be a natural number. Every cell of a square table \(A\) of size \(n \times n\) is filled with one of the numbers \(1\) and \(-1\). For each \(i \in \{1, 2, \ldots, n\}\) write \(k_i\) for the product of the numbers in the \(i\)-th column and \(v_i\) for the product of the numbers in the \(i\)-th row. The table is called perfect if

\[ k_1 + k_2 + \cdots + k_n + v_1 + v_2 + \cdots + v_n = 0 . \]

Determine all natural numbers \(n \geq 2\) for which a perfect table exists.

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Serbian Regional Competition (Okruzno takmicenje) 2013, high school grade I, category A, problem 5. Organized by the Mathematical Society of Serbia (DMS). Source