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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. The answer to Problem 1018 is yes: for every ϵ>0\epsilon>0 there is a constant CϵC_\epsilon such that every graph on nn vertices with at least n1+ϵn^{1+\epsilon} edges contains a non-planar subgraph on at most CϵC_\epsilon vertices once nn is large. The claimed result is A. Kostochka and L. Pyber, Small topological complete subgraphs of "dense" graphs, Combinatorica 8 (1988), no. 1, 83--86 (received 2 October 1985, revised 15 September 1986; issued March 1988, whose nominal first day is this page's date), filed on its card (no file held). Its Theorem (p. 83), in the corpus's words: for every t∈Nt\in\mathbb N and ε>0\varepsilon>0, every graph with nn vertices and 4t2n1+ε4^{t^2}n^{1+\varepsilon} edges contains a subdivision of KtK_t on at most c(ε,t)≤7t2log⁡t/εc(\varepsilon,t)\le7t^2\log t/\varepsilon vertices. The proof (p. 85) starts from a graph with at least 22t(t−1)t⋅n1+ε2^{2t(t-1)}t\cdot n^{1+\varepsilon} edges, which is at most 4t2n1+ε4^{t^2}n^{1+\varepsilon}, so the theorem holds with "at least" in place of exactly that many edges, as the abstract states it; the logarithm's base is 22, read off the proof of Lemma 1.1 (a filing observation on the result page, the paper naming no base). The introduction (p. 83) states Erdős's question of 1971 (item 12) and presents the theorem as its answer; a Remark there says that girth results force the optimal bound to be at least of order t2/εt^2/\varepsilon, and the note added in proof (p. 85) reports Szemerédi's view that this order is probably attainable.

How the printed theorem reaches the site's question. A conversion made in this corpus, not in the paper: take t=5t=5 and apply the theorem with ϵ/2\epsilon/2 for ε\varepsilon. A graph on nn vertices with at least n1+ϵn^{1+\epsilon} edges has at least 425n1+ϵ/24^{25}n^{1+\epsilon/2} edges once n≥450/ϵn\ge4^{50/\epsilon}, and then contains a subdivided K5K_5 on at most 350log⁡25/ϵ350\log_25/\epsilon vertices; a subdivision of K5K_5 is non-planar by Kuratowski's theorem. So Cϵ=⌊350log⁡25/ϵ⌋C_\epsilon=\lfloor350\log_25/\epsilon\rfloor works for all n≥450/ϵn\ge4^{50/\epsilon}, an explicit form of the site's Oϵ(1)O_\epsilon(1) bound. The claim's value is proved, the question being answered in the affirmative; SOLVED is the site's label. The conversion is elementary and carries no independent review. Jiang (J. Graph Theory 67 (2011), 139--152; not held) later removed the logarithm and made the subdivision paths uniformly short, as Janzer reports; that sharpening is second-hand on this page and not part of this claim.

Depends on. Nothing in this wiki; the paper's own statement and the conversion above are the whole argument.

Acceptance. Refereed publication in Combinatorica (Crossref record: volume 8, issue 1, pp. 83--86, issued March 1988), which is the refereed evidence. The reviewed evidence is documented acceptance by a named expert and by the site's curator: Janzer, The extremal number of longer subdivisions, Bull. London Math. Soc. 53 (2021), 108--118 (refereed; its arXiv copy filed on its card), opens by crediting Kostochka and Pyber with answering Erdős's question on planar subgraphs through this theorem, stated with the same constants, and calls it the first result giving a subdivided KtK_t of bounded size; and the site's curator, Thomas Bloom, who took no part in the paper, labels the problem SOLVED and credits the paper with a bounded subdivision of K5K_5, the community database agreeing (solved as of its last update of 12 December 2025, and on 2026-10-07 solved (Lean), with a last update of 16 September 2026, through the second formalization below). The thread's first pointer (13 September 2025) was to Janzer's paper, from which the curator traced the earlier solution. Read depth: the Theorem, the abstract, Erdős's question as the paper states it and the Notation (p. 83) are checked clause by clause; the lemmas (p. 84) and the proof (p. 85) are read for structure only, with a sign misprint in the printed exponents of Lemma 1.1 recorded on the card and not resolved; nothing is independently reviewed.

Formalizations. Two Lean developments declare themselves formalizations of this result and are linked above; neither was built or audited in this corpus, so the evidence stays reviewed and refereed with no formalized. (1) The file src/latest/ErdosProblems/Erdos1018.lean of Boris Alexeev's repository plby/lean-proofs (1,650 lines at the pinned commit of 2026-09-15, with four sibling modules under ErdosProblems/Erdos1018/ and the repository's record page ErdosProblems/Erdos1018.md as the record link; first committed 17 August 2026; headed leanprover/lean4:v4.33.0 mathlib v4.33.0) declares itself "a Lean formalization of a solution to Erdős Problem 1018", names Alexandr Kostochka and László Pyber as informal authors and Codex and GPT-5.6 Sol as formal authors, and proves erdos_1018: for every real ε>0\varepsilon>0 there are naturals CC and NN such that every SimpleGraph (Fin n) with n≥Nn\ge N and at least n1+εn^{1+\varepsilon} edges (Real.rpow, edges counted by edgeSet.ncard) has a subgraph on at most CC vertices that is non-planar, where IsNonplanar is defined as containing a subdivision of K5K_5 or of K3,3K_{3,3} (the Kuratowski characterization taken as the definition); its header says the proof obtains a bounded-order subdivision of K5K_5, as the paper does. The file contains no sorry, axiom or native_decide. (2) Collin Yuanjie Ren's submission JSP-000848 in the repository CollinYuanjieRen/awards (commit of 16 September 2026, linked above) credits Kostochka and Pyber with the underlying theorem, reuses the five files of Alexeev's proof, which its README credits to Codex and GPT-5.6 Sol, and the Apache-licensed Schoenflies development of Álvaro Begué, and adds the ordinary topological conclusion: its root theorem Erdos1018Topological.erdos_1018_ordinary_nonplanarity (MerLeanExperiment/Goal.lean) has the same quantifiers and hypotheses and concludes that the bounded subgraph admits no crossing-free plane drawing (¬ Nonempty (PlanarListColoring.PlaneDrawing S.coe)), through a drawing of K5K_5 and the Euler formula. The README names no AI system for the added part; the community database's note calls the contribution AI-assisted and, on 2026-10-07, lists it as the problem's Lean formal status (status "solved (Lean)", with a last update of 16 September 2026). Neither development is built, replayed or kernel-checked in this corpus, and no outside examination of either is published, so the page lists no formalized evidence. Formal-conjectures held no statement of the problem on 2026-10-07.