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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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Source. F. C. Clemen, A. Dumitrescu and D. Liu, On multiplicities of interpoint distances, Acta Math. Hungar. 177 (2025), no. 1, 231--245, DOI 10.1007/s10474-025-01562-y; read as arXiv:2505.04283v5 (3 February 2026), whose printed page numbers equal its PDF pages. Proposition 1.8 is on p. 3 and its proof in Section 3.2, pp. 7--8. The journal version's pagination and labels were not compared.

Statement

Proposition 1.8 (p. 3). "For any ε>0\varepsilon>0, there exists n0(ε)∈Nn_0(\varepsilon)\in\mathbb N such that if n≥n0(ε)n\geq n_0(\varepsilon), then out of the m=Θ(n/log⁡n)m=\Theta(n/\sqrt{\log n}) distances presented in the n×n\sqrt n\times\sqrt n grid: (i) at least (1−ε) m/9(1-\varepsilon)\,m/9 distances occur at least 16n/916n/9 times; (ii) at least (1−ε) m/16(1-\varepsilon)\,m/16 distances occur at least 9n/49n/4 times; (iii) at least (1−ε) m/25(1-\varepsilon)\,m/25 distances occur at least 64n/2564n/25 times."

The paper frames it (p. 3) as sample combinations, not exhaustive, of constants c1>0c_1>0 and c2>1c_2>1 for which an nn-point set with mm distances has c1mc_1m distances occurring at least c2nc_2n times, extending Bhowmick's answer to the Erdős–Pach question with c1=1/4c_1=1/4, c2=1c_2=1.

Proof pointer

Section 3.2 (pp. 7--8, Figure 2). The paper proves (ii), with n=16k2n=16k^2: the grid splits into 1616 subgrids of size k×kk\times k, each determining (1±o(1))m/16(1\pm o(1))m/16 distances, and a distance of a non-axis-parallel segment in a subgrid recurs, by translation, at least 36k2=9n/436k^2=9n/4 times in the whole grid; axis-parallel distances are at most k=o(m)k=o(m) in number. It states that (i) and (iii) follow in the same way from 99 and 2525 subgrids.

Dependencies and read depth

External: the count (1±o(1))cn/log⁡n(1\pm o(1))cn/\sqrt{\log n} of distances in the grid, from Erdős (1946) or Pach and Agarwal, Chap. 12, as cited on p. 7. Read depth: claims checked; the statement and its framing were read clause by clause on the page image of p. 3, and the proof on pp. 7--8 for structure only.

Bears on. #756 (context: multiplicity at least c2nc_2n with c2>1c_2>1 for a fraction of the grid's m=Θ(n/log⁡n)m=\Theta(n/\sqrt{\log n}) distances, which is o(n)o(n) distances, not the ≫n\gg n the problem asks for).