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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 401 is yes. Write Pr=2⋅3⋯prP_r=2\cdot3\cdots p_r for the product of the first rr primes. There is a function ω(r)\omega(r) with ω(r)→∞\omega(r)\to\infty as r→∞r\to\infty such that, for every r≥1r\ge1, infinitely many nn admit positive integers a1,a2a_1,a_2 with

a1+a2>n+ω(r)log⁡nanda1! a2!∣n! Pr n.a_1+a_2>n+\omega(r)\log n \qquad\text{and}\qquad a_1!\,a_2!\mid n!\,P_r^{\,n}.

The site's commentary credits the proof to Barreto and Leeham, working with ChatGPT; the thread shows the co-author posting under the name Liam Price, and the later Lean file Erdos401.lean names GPT-5.2 Pro, Kevin Barreto and Liam Price as the informal authors and Aristotle, Barreto and Boris Alexeev as the formal authors, while the header of the first file, Erdos401b.lean, describes it as a proof of Theorem 1 of the manuscript Factorial divisibility with bounded primes beyond the logarithmic barrier: an infinitely-many nn result of Erdős type, linked above. The result was announced in the site's discussion thread on 11 January 2026, the day the first Lean file was committed.

The construction. As the Lean development lays it out, the examples are n=2mn=2m, a1=m+ka_1=m+k and a2=ma_2=m with kk of order clog⁡Mc\log M for mm in a range [M,2M][M,2M], so that a1+a2−n=ka_1+a_2-n=k; the function is explicit, ω(r)=(γ/16)(q−1)/log⁡q\omega(r)=(\gamma/16)(q-1)/\log q with q=pr+1q=p_{r+1} the first prime not dividing PrP_r and γ=9/70\gamma=9/70, which tends to infinity with rr because qq does. The divisibility (m+k)! m!∣(2m)! Pr 2m(m+k)!\,m!\mid(2m)!\,P_r^{\,2m} is checked prime by prime: the primes up to prp_r are absorbed by the factor Pr nP_r^{\,n}, and for the primes beyond prp_r Kummer's theorem turns the condition into a statement about carries in base-pp addition, which a counting argument shows holds for some mm in every long enough range. The construction is the one the same authors used for Problem 729, the less precise form of this question, as the site remarks.

Formulation. The source [ErGr80] does not fix the quantifier on nn. The site reads the problem as asking for infinitely many nn, by comparison with Problems 728 and 729, and this page proves that reading. The reading with "all large nn" is false, as Nat Sothanaphan showed in the thread on 10 January 2026 with ChatGPT: for r≥2r\ge2 and n=pr+1k−1n=p_{r+1}^k-1 the divisibility forces a1+a2≤n+2pr+1a_1+a_2\le n+2p_{r+1}. That refutation concerns a variant the site rejected as the intended statement, and it is recorded on the problem page, not as a claim.

Formalization. Erdos401b.lean in Boris Alexeev's repository of Lean proofs, first committed on 11 January 2026 and linked above at that commit, proves theorem_1: for every r≥1r\ge1 the set of nn with the property above is infinite, with ω\omega as defined there. The later Erdos401.lean, linked above at the commit the formal-conjectures statement file pins, is the same development with its header naming the authors and the postings; the file reports that theorem_1 depends only on the axioms propext, Classical.choice and Quot.sound. This corpus has not built or audited either file, so neither is listed as evidence.

Depends on. No page of this wiki.

Acceptance. Thomas Bloom, the site's curator, marks the problem proved, credits Barreto and Leeham on the problem page (last edited 12 January 2026) and records the formalization in the site's label; the community database records the problem as proved with a Lean proof (last updated 11 January 2026). There is no refereed write-up; the acceptance rests on the curator's documented review. Sothanaphan's later deduction of the same answer from their write-up of Problem 728 has its own page.