Lattice Midpoints

n n lattice points are drawn on the coordinate plane. These points' pairwise midpoints are then drawn. What is the smallest possible value of n n such that one is guaranteed to have at least 2014 2014 of the midpoints also be lattice points?

Details and Assumptions

This problem is inspired by a classic proof problem.

If two pairs of points happen to have a common midpoint, both midpoints should be counted.


The answer is 129.

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1 solution

Daniel Liu
Aug 24, 2014

Let a , b , c , d a,b,c,d be the number of points that are ( x , y ) = ( 0 , 0 ) , ( 0 , 1 ) , ( 1 , 0 ) , ( 1 , 1 ) m o d 2 (x,y)=(0,0),(0,1),(1,0),(1,1)\mod{2} , respectively.

We know that a + b + c + d = n a+b+c+d=n . Also, note that among the points in a , b , c a,b,c or d d , we can pick any two from one group and have the midpoint be a lattice point. If a group has x x points, then we can pick x ( x 1 ) 2 \dfrac{x(x-1)}{2} pairs. Each of these pairs will give a midpoint that is a lattice point.

So let f ( x ) = x ( x 1 ) 2 f(x)=\dfrac{x(x-1)}{2} . We know that a + b + c + d = n a+b+c+d=n and we want to make sure f ( a ) + f ( b ) + f ( c ) + f ( d ) 2014 f(a)+f(b)+f(c)+f(d)\ge 2014 . Thus, we want to make sure that f ( a ) + f ( b ) + f ( c ) + f ( d ) f(a)+f(b)+f(c)+f(d) is at its minimum.

By Jensen's Inequality, f ( a ) + f ( b ) + f ( c ) + f ( d ) 4 f ( a + b + c + d 4 ) = f ( n 4 ) \dfrac{f(a)+f(b)+f(c)+f(d)}{4}\ge f\left(\dfrac{a+b+c+d}{4}\right)=f\left(\dfrac{n}{4}\right)

Thus, f ( a ) + f ( b ) + f ( c ) + f ( d ) 4 f ( n 4 ) = n ( n 4 ) 8 f(a)+f(b)+f(c)+f(d)\ge 4f\left(\dfrac{n}{4}\right)=\dfrac{n(n-4)}{8}

We want the minimum to exceed 2014 2014 , so we let n ( n 4 ) 8 2014 \dfrac{n(n-4)}{8}\ge 2014 . Solving gives n 128.949 n\ge 128.949 so the minimum possible integer value of n n is 129 \boxed{129} .

Equality case in Jensens is when a = b = c = d a=b=c=d . However, we see that that is not possible in this case because a , b , c , d a,b,c,d are integers and 129 129 is not divisible by 4 4 . Thus we closely approximate the equality case with a = b = c = 32 a=b=c=32 and d = 33 d=33 .

Indeed, the number of lattice midpoints in this setup is 3 f ( 32 ) + f ( 33 ) = 2016 > 2014 3f(32)+f(33)=2016 > 2014 .

Daniel Liu - 6 years, 9 months ago

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