Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.
Updated
Claim. The answer to Problem 7
is no, under one unproved hypothesis. The Lean file main.lean of the
repository posted on the problem's discussion thread on 2026-01-11 by the
users gebyjaff and AlejandroZarzuelo, pinned above at its commit of that
day, proves erdos_selfridge_answer: there is no covering system with
distinct odd moduli, given the hypothesis HoughNielsenFact that every
distinct covering system has a modulus divisible by or . That
hypothesis is the published theorem of Hough and Nielsen, accepted on
its claim page.
The file also declares the axiom HoughNielsenGoodFibre: for an odd
covering system with a modulus divisible by and not every exponent
trivial, the union of two finite obstruction sets in
is smaller than the whole group. The post says the proof was generated with
Archivara and Aristotle, with a human bridging the final gap, and the file's
header says it was edited by Aristotle; a PDF appendix gives sources for the
second axiom.
Hypothesis. The axiom HoughNielsenGoodFibre, a quantitative fibre
bound the appendix attributes to the Hough–Nielsen method. It is not a
published theorem, and nothing on the thread or in the repository proves it.
If it holds, the development derives the negative answer; the claim decides
nothing without it.
Depends on. The Hough–Nielsen theorem on
its claim page,
which the development takes as its hypothesis HoughNielsenFact.
Standing. Claimed. The thread's replies of 2026-01-11 found gaps: Daniel Larsen asked for the missing explanation of how Hough and Nielsen's uncovered set relates to the collision events the file uses and why the active moduli stay distinct; Nat Sothanaphan judged the appendix to be machine-generated; and a user reported that the development leaves holes Aristotle did not fill. The claimants did not withdraw. There is no write-up beyond the appendix, no refereed publication, no outside review, and this corpus has not built the development; the site's label for the problem is VERIFIABLE.