Wiki
Wiki

Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.

Updated


Statement

Setting (p. 3). DD is the set of all nontrivial divisors of 720=24⋅32⋅5720=2^4\cdot3^2\cdot5 (the paper's equation (3); the divisor 11 is left out):

D={2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,12,15,16,18,20,24,30,36,40,45,48,60,72,80,90,120,144,180,240,360,720},D=\{2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,12,15,16,18,20,24,30,36,40,45,48,60,72,80,90,120,144,180,240,360,720\},

listed as d1<d2<⋯<d29d_1<d_2<\cdots<d_{29}, with prefixes Dj={d1,…,dj}D_j=\{d_1,\ldots,d_j\}. α\alpha is the independence number of the unit-fraction hypergraph of Lemma 1.

Proposition 1 (Finite certificate, p. 3). For the prefixes DjD_j of (3), the paper's table gives α(Dj)\alpha(D_j). For j=1,…,29j=1,\ldots,29 its values are

1,2,3,4,4,5,6,7,7,7,8,9,9,9,9,10,10,10,10,10,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,1,2,3,4,4,5,6,7,7,7,8,9,9,9,9,10,10,10,10,10,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,

so the deficiencies j−α(Dj)j-\alpha(D_j) run

0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,2,3,3,3,4,5,6,6,7,8,9,10,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,2,3,3,3,4,5,6,6,7,8,9,10,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,

and in particular α(D)=11\alpha(D)=11.

Source. Xinjun Wang, A 667/806 Upper Bound for Erdős Problem #301 on Unit-Fraction-Free Sets, unpublished manuscript dated May 27, 2026 on its title page, posted on ResearchGate (2026), identified on the source card: Proposition 1 and its table on p. 3, the set (3) on p. 3, and the verification script in Appendix A (pp. 6--9). An unrefereed manuscript, which the site's Problem 301 discussion thread describes as AI-generated.

Read depth. Claims checked: the statement and every row of the table were read on the page image, and the values above agree with the script's expected-value list on p. 6. The script was read as text and not rerun, so the values themselves are the manuscript's claim. Nothing here is independently reviewed.

Proof pointer

P. 3 and Appendix A (pp. 6--9). Each lower bound α(Dj)≥\alpha(D_j)\ge the tabulated value is witnessed by an explicit independent subset of DjD_j listed in the script. For the upper bounds the script enumerates the inclusion-minimal hyperedges of the full DD (each identity 1/d=∑e∈E1/e1/d=\sum_{e\in E}1/e checked as the integer identity 720/d=∑e∈E720/e720/d=\sum_{e\in E}720/e), restricts them to prefixes, and runs an exact branch-and-bound search only at the last prefix of each run of equal values; since α\alpha cannot grow on passing to a subset, that settles the earlier prefixes of the run. Remark 1 (p. 3) explains why discarding non-minimal hyperedges leaves the independent sets unchanged.

Dependencies

  • Lemma 1 for the hypergraph and α\alpha; otherwise a finite computation.

Bears on

  • Problem 301: the table is the finite input to the manuscript's Theorem 1; weighted over disjoint dilates it gives the manuscript's missing density 139/806139/806. The proposition is a finite statement about DD and by itself gives no bound for f(N)f(N).