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For what values of is the sequence complete (that is, all sufficiently large integers are the sum of distinct integers of the form )?
For what values of is the sequence , , complete (that is, all sufficiently large integers are of the form with or and )?
Source: erdosproblems.com/349
No claim settles this problem.
Open, the site's label (OPEN as of 2026-10-06). Six partial claims
are recorded and none settles the question. Accepted on refereed evidence:
Graham's 1964
determination of the complete pairs with , . Pending:
van Doorn's 2026
preprint, which with Graham's results decides every ,
classifies entire completeness for and proves completeness
regions below the golden ratio;
Sothanaphan's note
with GPT-5.2 Thinking, sharpening van Doorn's infinite-area region;
the catalog's Lean
proofs of the elementary regions of the site's wording, of which the
completeness of the pairs , , carries over to the Statement;
Kitamura's
Lean theorem at the square root of the golden ratio, which makes the sequence
complete for every at that one base; and
Geneson's Salem-base
counterexample, a 2026 preprint stating that at one Salem number below the
golden ratio there are arbitrarily large with every even, which refutes the completeness the site's remarks
conjecture for every and . The pairs with
and are classified by no
claim outside the regions and the base proved complete, so the
derived standing is open/none.
The site's parenthesis asks for sums of distinct integers of the form , so a value taken at several indices can be used only once. That changes the answer. At , every term is : under the site's wording the only sums are and , so the sequence is not complete, while with each term usable once every positive integer is a sum; the same holds for every at . Below coincident values matter as well: at , the terms begin , , and Graham's Theorem 2 makes the sequence entirely complete only when both ones are available, as Wouter van Doorn pointed out in the site's thread on 2025-09-07. The site's wording also names no first index, which changes the answer too: with the index from the pair gives and is complete, and with the index from it gives and is not.
The change replaces "the sum of distinct integers of the form " by "of the form with or and " and inserts "" after the sequence; nothing else changes. The evidence is the posers' own text, the passage the site cites. Erdős and Graham [ErGr80] (Old and new problems and results in combinatorial number theory), printed p. 57, ask: "Let with . For what values of and is complete?" Their chapter on completeness defines, printed p. 53, or for a sequence , notes on printed p. 54 that these sums "are restricted by the multiplicity any particular term can have", and calls a sequence of integers complete "if contains all sufficiently large integers" (printed p. 54). Graham's paper [Gr64e], §§1--2 (its card), states Erdős's conjecture for , , with the same sums. No text of the posers counts values once or starts the index at , so the defect is the site's. The monograph's card does not transcribe the printed p. 57 passage. The form follows the posers' statement of this question, not the results that settle parts of it, and the change moves no standing: the problem is open under the site's wording and under the corrected Statement.
Results about the site's wording are credited here and count for nothing. The Lean proofs contributed to formal-conjectures under the account cepadugato in June 2026 (pull requests #4225 and #4233, proofs pinned at 23c629bc and 19e39e33) state the site's wording, with values counted once and the index from . Their non-completeness results for and for positive integer pairs other than answer only that wording; their completeness results at carry over to the Statement, and their claim page (cepadugato, 2026) records them with that scope.