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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 integers 1≤a<b1\le a<b there are integers 1<n1<⋯<nk1<n_1<\cdots<n_k with

ab=1n1+⋯+1nk,nk≤b(log⁡b)(log⁡log⁡b)3(log⁡log⁡log⁡b)O(1),\frac ab=\frac1{n_1}+\cdots+\frac1{n_k},\qquad n_k\le b(\log b)(\log\log b)^3(\log\log\log b)^{O(1)},

with an absolute implied constant and for bb large enough for the iterated logarithms to make sense. In the notation of Problem 305 this is D(b)≪b(log⁡b)(log⁡log⁡b)3(log⁡log⁡log⁡b)O(1)D(b)\ll b(\log b)(\log\log b)^3(\log\log\log b)^{O(1)}, which implies D(b)≪b(log⁡b)1+o(1)D(b)\ll b(\log b)^{1+o(1)} and answers the problem's question yes, independently of Yokota's earlier solution (its claim page), whose exponent 44 of log⁡log⁡b\log\log b it lowers to 33. The statement is Theorem 1.5 of the paper, recorded with a proof sketch on the library's result page: a smooth common denominator QQ splits a/ba/b into a remainder that becomes smooth after multiplication by bb and a fraction with denominator QQ; the paper's Lemma 4.1 represents suitable smooth fractions with denominators in an interval of fixed ratio, and two such representations, scaled by bb and by an integer yy, give the result; the scaled sets are disjoint by size when a>16a>16 and, when a≤16a\le16, because yy is a prime not dividing bb.

Acceptance. Refereed: Liu, Y. P. and Sawhney, M., On further questions regarding unit fractions, Int. Math. Res. Not. IMRN 2026, no. 2, rnaf382, received 28 October 2025, accepted 23 December 2025, published online 14 January 2026 (the publisher's record). The arXiv preprint is v1 of 10 April 2024, the version the library's source card records; the published text has not been compared with it. Reviewed: the site's curator, Thomas Bloom, marks Problem 305 proved and records this bound by name in the problem's commentary, as the improvement of the bound of Yokota's paper, which the commentary credits with the solution. The theorem's full proof at its own parameters is not compiled in this corpus, and no independent review of it is recorded.

Formalization. The file src/latest/ErdosProblems/Erdos305.lean in Boris Alexeev's lean-proofs collection at the pinned commit (the third link) declares itself a Lean formalization of the affirmative resolution of Problem 305, names Bleicher, Erdős, Yokota, Liu and Sawhney as its informal authors and Codex, GPT-5.6 Sol (OpenAI Codex) as its formal authors, and cites the arXiv preprint of this paper among its primary references. Its theorem erdos_305 proves the problem's b(log⁡b)1+o(1)b(\log b)^{1+o(1)} statement, not Theorem 1.5's bound; its top file does not single out this paper's argument or Yokota's. The corpus did not build the file, so no formalized evidence is listed; the same link is on Yokota's page.