Problem

Source: Greece team selection test problem 4

Tags: algebra, invariant



Some positive integers are initially written on a board, where each $2$ of them are different. Each time we can do the following moves: (1) If there are 2 numbers (written in the board) in the form $n, n+1$ we can erase them and write down $n-2$ (2) If there are 2 numbers (written in the board) in the form $n, n+4$ we can erase them and write down $n-1$ After some moves, there might appear negative numbers. Find the maximum value of the integer $c$ such that: Independetly of the starting numbers, each number which appears in any move is greater or equal to $c$