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Can 13, 15 and 17 chameleons become one colour

Question

On an island live 1313 red, 1515 green and 1717 blue chameleons. Whenever two chameleons of different colours meet, both switch to the third colour; nothing else changes colours. Is it possible that at some point every chameleon has the same colour?

Short answer

No. A meeting changes the three counts by (−1,−1,+2)(-1,-1,+2) in some order, which leaves every pairwise difference unchanged modulo 33. To end with one colour, two counts must both be 00, a difference of 0 mod 30 \bmod 3, but the initial differences are 22, 22 and 4≡14\equiv1, none divisible by 33.

Adapted from Zhou, A Practical Guide to Quantitative Finance Interviews, sec. 2.7 Modular Arithmetic, 'Chameleon colors', p.25; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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