AIME 2015 Problem 5

Two unit squares are selected at random without replacement from an n × n n \times n grid of unit squares. Find the least positive integer n n such that the probability that the two selected unit squares are horizontally or vertically adjacent is less than 1 2015 \dfrac{1}{2015} .


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The answer is 90.00000.

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1 solution

Brandon Monsen
Dec 3, 2015

In an n × n n \times n grid, there are ( n 2 ) 2 (n-2)^{2} squares such that there are 4 4 squares adjacent to the square you chose, there are 4 n 8 4n-8 squares such that there are 3 3 squares adjacent to the square you chose, and lastly, the 4 4 corner squares such that there are 2 2 possible adjacent squares. This means we want the smallest integer n n such that

( n 2 ) 2 n 2 × 4 n 2 1 + 4 n 8 n 2 × 3 n 2 1 + 4 n 2 × 2 n 2 1 < 1 2015 \frac{(n-2)^{2}}{n^{2}} \times \frac{4}{n^{2}-1}+\frac{4n-8}{n^{2}} \times \frac{3}{n^{2}-1}+\frac{4}{n^{2}} \times \frac{2}{n^{2}-1}<\frac{1}{2015}

We can simplify the inequality to

4 n 2 4 n n 4 n 2 < 1 2015 \frac{4n^{2}-4n}{n^{4}-n^{2}}<\frac{1}{2015} ( n ) ( 4 ) ( n 1 ) n 2 ( n + 1 ) ( n 1 ) < 1 2015 \frac{(n)(4)(n-1)}{n^{2}(n+1)(n-1)}<\frac{1}{2015} n ( n + 1 ) > 8060 n(n+1)>8060

And so we can deduce that the smallest n n is n = 90 n=\boxed{90}

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