Problem

Source: Bosnia and Herzegovina Junior Balkan Mathematical Olympiad TST 2014

Tags: combinatorics, iterations, Invariants



It is given $5$ numbers $1$, $3$, $5$, $7$, $9$. We get the new $5$ numbers such that we take arbitrary $4$ numbers(out of current $5$ numbers) $a$, $b$, $c$ and $d$ and replace them with $\frac{a+b+c-d}{2}$, $\frac{a+b-c+d}{2}$, $\frac{a-b+c+d}{2}$ and $\frac{-a+b+c+d}{2}$. Can we, with repeated iterations, get numbers: $a)$ $0$, $2$, $4$, $6$ and $8$ $b)$ $3$, $4$, $5$, $6$ and $7$