Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.
Updated
Claim. The second question of Problem 367 fails at by more than the rate: for every there is with
so the ratio of the product to is unbounded. The construction runs the Pell sequence of van Doorn's claim over a finite set of primes at once: with one has , so for a suitable index every with divides , giving while ; the gain tends to infinity with . Hughes posted the result in the problem's thread on 2026-06-10 with a Lean 4 repository, pinned above at its commit of that day, whose README describes it as the formalized results accompanying a paper of Hughes's on powerful parts of consecutive integers and Davenport–Zannier polynomials.
Submission note. Posted to the site's forum by S. D. Hughes on 10 June 2026:
Some progress on this problem and its extension. The main constructions are vibe formalized in Lean 4/Mathlib — zero sorries, standard axioms, the audit prints at build time — here.
The extension (in its nontrivial reading — some ): resolved affirmatively for all , with any . For odd : , so and ; Schur+Hensel force with by taking in one period. Even : same with .
The lower bound strengthens to $\limsup_n \frac{B_2(n)B_2(n+1)B_2(n+2)}{n^2\log n}=\infty$: run the Pell construction with a finite set of primes simultaneously (, odd quotients), giving with $\log n_j\ll\prod_{p\in S}\frac{p+1}2p$; the gain is .
For two-term cube-full parts, satisfies
the upper bound conditional on
, the lower bound via an explicit degree-27 Davenport–Zannier identity (, ) plus the same Hensel device; a rational identity of this shape of degree gives , so a family with would pin under .
Also recorded: under , $\prod_{n\le m<n+k}B_2(m)\ll_{k,\varepsilon}n^{2+\varepsilon}$ for every fixed (Granville–Langevin radical bound applied to ). The unconditional weak form of course remains open.
Covers. The second question (the part strong_bound), already answered
no on van Doorn's page; this claim sharpens the rate at from
infinitely often to an unbounded ratio against .
Not covered: the first question (the part weak_bound), on which Hughes
has a separate
conditional claim.
Depends on. Nothing in this wiki; the Lean development is self-contained, and van Doorn's page is cited for the construction it extends.
Standing. Claimed. Three things qualify the Lean. First, the repository's
headline theorem erdos367 in the module PellLimsup, that for every real
some has the product above , holds trivially at , where
and the product is . Second, the unbounded ratio therefore
rests on the lemma erdos367_key, that for every some index has
, together with the lemmas L1 and L2, that
and ; along the lemma does give the
claim. Third, the paper the README cites has no public posting. The README
reports that every module builds without sorry and that each theorem depends
only on propext, Classical.choice and Quot.sound, with no native_decide.
The corpus has not built or audited the repository, so no formalized evidence
is listed; the site labels the problem OPEN (page last edited 23 March 2026) and
its commentary does not mention this result, so no reviewed evidence is listed
either. The same repository carries Hughes's other claims: the variant of
the site's commentary for odd (erdos367_iv, with ) and an
arithmetic core for Hughes's bounds on
under explicit prime-supply hypotheses; the problem page records them.