A big LED screen

Inspired by this problem by Ossama Ismail


Consider a grid of n × n n \times n LEDs. At first, they are all turned OFF, but then you select a 5 × 5 5 \times 5 square of LEDs and toggle these 25. You do this for all possible 5 × 5 5 \times 5 squares and then count the number of LEDs that are ON. This number is called on ( n ) \text{on}(n) . Now, calculate

lim n on ( n ) n 2 \displaystyle \lim_{n \to \infty} \frac {\text{on}(n)}{n^2}


The answer is 1.

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2 solutions

David Vreken
Dec 27, 2018

For n > 8 n > 8 , the LEDs that are not in the first 4 4 columns, first 4 4 rows, last 4 4 columns, and last 4 4 rows will be toggled 25 25 times (one for each position in the 5 × 5 5 \times 5 square) and therefore will be on at the end.

Therefore, at least the ( n 8 ) × ( n 8 ) = n 2 16 n + 64 (n - 8) \times (n - 8) = n^2 - 16n + 64 central square of LEDs will be on at the end, and at most all n × n = n 2 n \times n = n^2 LEDs will be on at the end.

In other words, lim n n 2 16 n + 64 n 2 lim n on ( n ) n 2 lim n n 2 n 2 \displaystyle \lim_{n \to \infty} \frac{n^2 - 16n + 64}{n^2} \leq \lim_{n \to \infty} \frac{\text{on}(n)}{n^2} \leq \lim_{n \to \infty} \frac{n^2}{n^2} .

Since lim n n 2 16 n + 64 n 2 = 1 \displaystyle \lim_{n \to \infty} \frac{n^2 - 16n + 64}{n^2} = 1 and lim n n 2 n 2 = 1 \displaystyle \lim_{n \to \infty} \frac{n^2}{n^2} = 1 , by the squeeze theorem lim n on ( n ) n 2 = 1 \displaystyle \lim_{n \to \infty} \frac{\text{on}(n)}{n^2} = \boxed{1} as well.

Jeremy Galvagni
Dec 31, 2018

For large n n , most of the LEDs will be toggled 25 times and will eventually be ON. The only ones that will be toggled an even number of times are some of those near the edges and corners. It doesn't matter exactly how many, though, because as we go to infinity, they will be overwhelmed by the internal ones. Almost all of the LEDs will be on as the proportion goes to 1 \boxed{1} .

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