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 the of Problem 866 (the least excess such that every with contains all pairwise sums of distinct integers ), Section 1 of S. L. G. Choi, P. Erdős and E. Szemerédi, Some additive and multiplicative problems in number theory, Acta Arith. 27 (1975), 37--50, writing for and for , proves (Theorems 1--4, printed pp. 37--42): members force three 's for (Theorem 1), so ; members force four for large (Theorem 2), so , an absolute constant; members force five for large (Theorem 3), so ; and members force six for large while even integers congruent to modulo with distinct pairwise sums, added to the odd integers, do not (Theorem 4), so
for large . For general , Theorem 5 (p. 42) gives for large (an excess of forces integers), with the corollary that an excess forces integers, and Theorem 6 (p. 43) gives, for every , a such that for all and large , by the odd integers plus even ones. The paper's lower bounds (the set ) and (the odd integers and the powers of ) hold only when the are required to be positive, the variant van Doorn writes : the paper's conventions call the integers, one of which may then be non-positive, and and defeat the two examples (van Doorn 2026, Section 3; the result page records the note). The paper's summary display, , , , , therefore holds for the site's in its upper bounds and in the lower bound, and for the positive variant in full. The paper is compiled at its source card; nothing is independently reviewed.
Covers. The order of magnitude of (bounded between absolute constants: for large , and by the odd integers) and of (), both for the site's ; the upper bounds and ; and for general the upper bound and the lower bound for . Not covered: the exact values of , and (the first two, and a constant bound on the third, are van Doorn's claim); the constants for ; the order of for every ; and the exponent for large , where the two general bounds leave the gap between and . The lower bounds for and are covered for the positive variant only.
Depends on. Nothing in this wiki.
Acceptance. Refereed: Acta Arithmetica 27 (1975), 37--50, DOI 10.4064/aa-27-1-37-50, the volume in memory of Ju. V. Linnik; the page is named by the year of publication, filled to its first day. Not reviewed: the site's curator credits the paper with , , , and the general bounds in the commentary of a problem the site labels OPEN (page last edited 1 December 2025), which is commentary and not acceptance; the two credited values for and hold for the positive variant only (above). The problem stays open because the question asks for the order of for every and this result fixes it for and only.