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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. For every f:N→{−1,+1}f:\mathbb{N}\to\{-1,+1\} and every C>0C>0 there are d,m≥1d,m\ge1 with

∣∑1≤k≤mf(kd)∣>C,\left\lvert\sum_{1\le k\le m} f(kd)\right\rvert > C,

so the answer to Problem 67 is yes. This is Corollary 1.2 of the paper, the sign-valued case of its Theorem 1.1, which gives the same conclusion for every ff whose values have norm one in a real or complex Hilbert space. The paper is held as Tao 2016.

Argument. The proof has three steps. A Fourier-analytic reduction from the Polymath5 project replaces ff by a random completely multiplicative function gg with values in the unit circle whose discrepancy controls that of ff. The author's logarithmically averaged form of the Elliott conjecture then forces such a gg to behave like a modulated Dirichlet character. An extension of a further Polymath5 argument shows that character-like functions still have unbounded discrepancy. The unit-norm hypothesis at every nn is necessary: a non-principal Dirichlet character of period qq has discrepancy at most qq but vanishes on the multiples of qq.

Acceptance. Refereed: Discrete Analysis 2016, Paper No. 1, published 2016-02-28, following the preprint arXiv:1509.05363 of 2015-09-17 (six versions, the last of 2017-01-13). Reviewed: the site's curator, T. F. Bloom, records the question as true and proved by Tao in the problem's commentary (page last edited 2026-04-17, read 2026-10-07); the curator is independent of the author. The community database, which the claimant maintains, also lists the problem as proved; that listing is not independent review. The only formalization recorded is the statement in formal-conjectures, linked from the problem page; no kernel-checked proof is recorded, and this corpus has audited none.

Not covered. Erdős's further conjecture, stated in several of the problem's sources, that the maximum over md≤xmd\le x grows at least like log⁡x\log x is a separate question the paper leaves open. Its Example 1.4, the Borwein--Choi--Coons function, is a completely multiplicative f:N→{−1,+1}f:\mathbb{N}\to\{-1,+1\} whose discrepancy up to NN is comparable to log⁡N\log N, so the conjectured order would be sharp, and its Example 1.5 is a unit-vector-valued ff whose discrepancy grows only like log⁡N\sqrt{\log N}; the paper conjectures that log⁡N\sqrt{\log N} is best possible for Theorem 1.1, says it is unclear whether a ±1\pm1 sequence can grow that slowly, and notes that its argument gives an explicit lower bound in principle, one likely far too weak to reach log⁡N\sqrt{\log N}. The site records McNamara's lower bound of order (log⁡log⁡x)1/484−o(1)(\log\log x)^{1/484-o(1)} for the variant in which m≤xm\le x and d≤exd\le e^x (McNamara's 2021 UCLA dissertation, Chapter 4, entry [Mc21] on the problem page), and Erdős's question about multiplicative ff. Neither bears on the standing of the question above.

Depends on. Nothing in this wiki; the result is the paper's own theorem.