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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. There is no constant C>0C>0 such that every finite set A⊆ZA\subseteq\mathbb Z has at most C∣A∣3/2C|A|^{3/2} 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 dd for which some a,b,c∈Aa,b,c\in A have b−a=c−b=db-a=c-b=d), 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 MM the development takes the integers with MM base-three digits all in {0,2}\{0,2\} and those with all digits in {1,2}\{1,2\}; their union AMA_M has at most 2M+12^{M+1} elements (card_A_M), and every integer whose base-three digit vector lies in {−1,0,1}M\{-1,0,1\}^M is a common difference, since a digit 11 is realized by 0,1,20,1,2, a digit 00 by 2,2,22,2,2 and a digit −1-1 by 2,1,02,1,0, the outer terms taken from the {0,2}\{0,2\} set and the middle term from the {1,2}\{1,2\} set (diffs_exist); the base-three evaluation is injective on such digit vectors, so AMA_M has at least 3M−13^M-1 common differences (card_diffs_A_M). Since 3>23/23>2^{3/2}, the inequality 3M−1≤C (2M+1)3/23^M-1\le C\,(2^{M+1})^{3/2} fails for large MM. Read as a growth rate, the construction gives sets of size nn with about (n/2)log⁡3/log⁡2(n/2)^{\log 3/\log 2} common differences, an exponent of 1.58…1.58\ldots; 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: O(n3/2)O(n^{3/2}) 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 1.77898…1.77898\ldots and 11/611/6 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.