Problem

Source: Tournament of Towns, Junior O-Level , Fall 2019 p5

Tags: combinatorics, Tiling, tiles



Basil has an unrestricted supply of straight bricks $1 \times 1 \times 3$ and Γ-shape bricks made of three cubes $1\times 1\times 1$. Basil filled a whole box $m \times n \times k$ with these bricks, where $m, n$ and $k$ are integers greater than $1$. Prove that it was sufficient to use only Γ-shape bricks. (Mikhail Evdokimov)