Problem

Source: Ukraine TST 2017

Tags: combinatorics, rectangle



Andriyko has rectangle desk and a lot of stripes that lie parallel to sides of the desk. For every pair of stripes we can say that first of them is under second one. In desired configuration for every four stripes such that two of them are parallel to one side of the desk and two others are parallel to other side, one of them is under two other stripes that lie perpendicular to it. Prove that Andriyko can put stripes one by one such way that every next stripe lie upper than previous and get desired configuration. Proposed by Denys Smirnov