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Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.

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Claim. E. G. Straus, On a problem in combinatorial number theory, J. Math. Sci. 1 (1966), 77--80, cited as [St66] on the problem page: an admissible subset of {1,…,N}\{1,\ldots,N\}, one in which two sums of distinct elements with different numbers of summands never coincide, has at most (4/3+o(1))N(4/\sqrt3+o(1))\sqrt N elements. The paper is not held and has no DOI, and the theorem is stated as two later sources give it. Erdős, Nicolas and Sárközy (Sém. Théor. Nombres Bordeaux (2) 3 (1991), 55--72) state Straus's Theorem 2 as their Lemme 1 (p. 56), P(A,k)≥k(∣A∣−k)+1P(\mathcal A,k)\ge k(|\mathcal A|-k)+1 for the number P(A,k)P(\mathcal A,k) of integers that are sums of exactly kk distinct elements of A\mathcal A, and use Straus's Theorem 4 in the form of their Lemme 2 (p. 57), F(N)<43N1/2+1F(N)<\frac4{\sqrt3}N^{1/2}+1 for the largest size F(N)F(N) of an admissible subset of {1,…,N}\{1,\ldots,N\}, proved there from Lemme 1 by following Straus's proof; Deshouillers and Freiman (Astérisque 258 (1999), p. 141) report Straus's bound as (4/3+o(1))N(4/\sqrt3+o(1))\sqrt N. Every admissible subset of the witness A={1,…,n}A=\{1,\ldots,n\} obeys this bound, so in the notation of Problem 789

h(n)<43n1/2+1,h(n)<\frac4{\sqrt3}n^{1/2}+1,

a one-line deduction the problem page records. Library result page of the 1991 reproof: Lemme 2.

Covers. The upper bound h(n)≪n1/2h(n)\ll n^{1/2}. Not covered: the order of growth of h(n)h(n), which lies between this bound and Choi's (nlog⁡n)1/3(n\log n)^{1/3}, and the sharper constant of Deshouillers and Freiman's Theorem 1, h(n)≤2n+1/4−1h(n)\le2\sqrt{n+1/4}-1 for n≥N0n\ge N_0.

Depends on. Lemme 2 of Erdős, Nicolas and Sárközy, the form of the bound in which this corpus reads it.

Acceptance. Refereed: the paper appeared in the Journal of Mathematical Sciences (Delhi), volume 1 (1966), as its zbMATH record (Zbl 0149.28503) gives it; the volume carries no publication day, so this page is named by the first day of its year. The site's curator, Thomas F. Bloom, credits h(n)≪n1/2h(n)\ll n^{1/2} to Straus in the problem page's commentary (label OPEN); the problem is not marked settled there, so the credit is recorded here and is not listed as reviewed. The theorem is stated from the two later sources; the proof of Lemme 2 has no independent review.