Problem

Source: Vietnam TST 2017

Tags: combinatorics



There are $44$ distinct holes in a line and $2017$ ants. Each ant comes out of a hole and crawls along the line with a constant speed into another hole, then comes in. Let $T$ be the set of moments for which the ant comes in or out of the holes. Given that $|T|\leq 45$ and the speeds of the ants are distinct. Prove that there exists two ants that don't collide.