Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.
Updated
Claim. There is no constant such that every finite set
has at most distinct common differences of
non-trivial three-term arithmetic progressions, which answers the second
question of Problem 1097 no.
The result is the Lean 4 theorem Erdos1097.erdos_1097, stated as
answer(False) ↔ ∃ C > 0, ∀ A, ncard ≤ C * card ^ (3/2) with the catalog's
predicate CommonDifferencesThreeTermAP (the non-zero for which some
have ), in the file
FormalConjectures/ErdosProblems/1097.lean of Moritz Firsching's fork of
formal-conjectures at its commit of 2026-05-28, with the construction split
between the module FormalConjectures/Counterexample.lean of the same commit
(the sets, card_A_M and the injectivity lemma eval_fun_inj_D) and the
problem file (diffs_exist, card_diffs_A_M), both linked above. For each
the development takes the integers with base-three digits all in
and those with all digits in ; their union has at most
elements (card_A_M), and every integer whose base-three digit vector lies in
is a common difference, since a digit is realized by ,
a digit by and a digit by , the outer terms taken from
the set and the middle term from the set (diffs_exist);
the base-three evaluation is injective on such digit vectors, so has at
least common differences (card_diffs_A_M). Since , the
inequality fails for large . Read as a growth
rate, the construction gives sets of size with about
common differences, an exponent of ; this reading is the corpus's,
since the theorem states only the negation. At the linked commit neither file
carries a sorry, and neither names an informal source or an AI system, so the
proof is recorded as independent under the fork's author as its commit records
them. The second question had been answered negatively on the problem's
discussion thread from 2 December 2025, by direct constructions and by the
embedding into Bourgain's sums-differences question that the site's commentary
adopts, as the problem page's Current assessment states; this Lean proof is a
self-contained formal disproof.
Covers. The negative answer to the second question: common differences do not always suffice. The first question, the order of magnitude of the maximum number of common differences, is not addressed; the site's commentary places the optimal exponent between and through the sums-differences equivalence described on the problem page, and the exponent this construction reaches lies below that range.
Depends on. Nothing in this wiki: the construction is self-contained.
Standing. Claimed. Not reviewed: the formal-conjectures catalog marks its
entry research solved with a formal_proof attribute pointing to the fork's
theorem, but the pointer was added by the proof's own author, and the site's
label is OPEN with its commentary (page last edited 1 April 2026) crediting the
negative answer to Lemm's sums-differences bound and not to this proof; no
outside reviewer has published an examination of it. Not refereed: it has no
write-up. Not formalized: the development is not among the Lean the corpus has
built and audited, so no formalized is listed. The claim is partial and
derives nothing for the problem's standing.