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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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Escudero answers the question of Problem 209 in the negative for every d≥4d\ge 4: there is an arrangement of dd real lines, no two parallel, with no point on four or more of the lines and with no Gallai triangle, a triangle formed by three of the lines whose three corners each lie on exactly two lines of the arrangement. Theorem 1 of the paper exhibits explicit arrangements Ad,kA_{d,k} with no Gallai triangle for d=3q+1d=3q+1 and d=3q+2d=3q+2 with k=0k=0, for d=9nd=9n with k=0k=0, and for d=3qd=3q with qq not divisible by 33 and k=2k=2; together these cover every d≥4d\ge 4. The lines come from the folding polynomials of the affine Weyl group of the root lattice A2A_2, and the absence of a Gallai triangle reduces to the unsolvability of linear congruences modulo dd. The source card [[../library/discrete_geometry/escudero_2016_gallai_triangles_configurations_lines_projective_plane/_index|records the paper's statements]]. The earlier arrangements of Füredi and Palásti covered every d≥4d\ge 4 not divisible by 99; this result adds the multiples of 99.

The result is refereed: Juan García Escudero, Gallai triangles in configurations of lines in the projective plane, C. R. Math. Acad. Sci. Paris 354 (2016), no. 6, 551-554. The site's curator, T. F. Bloom, marks the problem disproved and credits this paper with the answer for every d≥4d\ge 4. The site's label carries a Lean qualification: the formal_proof attribute of the formal-conjectures file, points to a Lean development that declares itself a formalization of Escudero's construction (the formalization link above, at its pinned commit). This corpus has not built or audited that development, so it is recorded as a link and not as evidence. The corpus records no check of the proof.