Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.
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Claim. Every finite graph with minimum degree at least and diameter
at most contains a cycle of length or . The proof, posted by Murat
Can Temeller as issue 1 of the zey9310/zey9310-math repository on 2 October
2026 (the claim's date) and registered the same day on the site's
proof-claims tab, extends Carr's theorem that every graph of diameter
and minimum degree at least contains a - or -cycle
(arXiv:2508.19302) to diameter , at the cost of raising the minimum
degree to . Suppose there is no -cycle and no -cycle, so two
vertices share at most one neighbor and every edge lies in at most one
triangle. If every edge lies in a triangle, a shortest path between outer
neighbors of two neighbors of a fixed vertex, lengthened by detours through
the triangles at that vertex, gives an -cycle. Otherwise an edge in
no triangle is fixed; the other neighbors of and of are
disjoint with no edges between them, their further neighbors are
distributed by a bridge argument and a funneling lemma, and the diameter
bound forces short connections between a child of and a child of
that in every case close a - or -cycle. Read depth: the
issue in full; this corpus has not checked the argument. The author credits the
theorem, proof and computations to Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic), the system
the submission names, in a session the author directed, and reports
exhaustive SAT-modulo-symmetries searches, checked against nauty, finding no
graph of minimum degree at least , diameter at most and no - or
-cycle on to vertices, and none with all degrees in
on to vertices.
Submission note. Posted to erdosproblems.com as a proof claim by Murat Can Temeller (account murican) on 2 October 2026, giving "Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic)" as the AI used:
Shows that every graph with minimum degree at least 4 and diameter at most 3 contains a cycle of length 4 or 8, so the conjecture holds for these graphs. This extends Carr's diameter-2 result to diameter 3 for minimum degree ≥ 4. The proof splits into two cases: if every edge lies in a triangle, detours through triangles force an 8-cycle; otherwise a case analysis around an edge in no triangle (bridges, a funnelling lemma, and the short connections forced by the diameter) produces a 4-cycle or an 8-cycle. Notes: The theorem, proof and computations were produced by Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic) in a session I directed. The proof has been checked step by step but not yet independently verified by a human expert; review is very welcome, especially Case 1 and Step 4a. Exhaustive SAT Modulo Symmetries searches (following Balaji's pipeline, validated against nauty) find no counterexample on 13 to 30 vertices, and nauty independently reproduces the positive-control counts. Separately, no graph with all degrees in {3, 4} and diameter at most 3 avoids both 4- and 8-cycles on 24 to 30 vertices. What remains open for diameter 3 is graphs with vertices of degree 3. Full proof, code and logs are at the link.
Covers. The statement of Problem 64 for graphs of minimum degree at least and diameter at most , where the cycle found has length or . Graphs of diameter at most with a vertex of degree are not covered, and the author names them as the remaining gap for diameter .
Depends on. Nothing in this wiki; the argument is self-contained apart from Carr's theorem, which it extends rather than uses.
Standing. Claimed: when read the proof was posted only as the issue text, the submission's formalization link pointed to the same issue and no Lean or other machine-checked proof was known to this corpus, and the author says the proof has been checked step by step but not by an independent expert. The two comments on the site's claim (2 and 3 October 2026) ask about that disclaimer and receive the author's reply that they are not an expert; one comment on the issue (5 October) suggests formalizing it. The computational searches are author-reported, and this corpus has not replayed them.