Problem

Source: Cono Sur 2010 #2

Tags: combinatorics, cono sur



On a line, $44$ points are marked and numbered $1, 2, 3,…,44$ from left to right. Various crickets jump around the line. Each starts at point $1$, jumping on the marked points and ending up at point $44$. In addition, each cricket jumps from a marked point to another marked point with a greater number. When all the crickets have finished jumping, it turns out that for pair $i, j$ with ${1}\leq{i}<{j}\leq{44}$, there was a cricket that jumped directly from point $i$ to point $j$, without visiting any of the points in between the two. Determine the smallest number of crickets such that this is possible.