Wiki
Wiki

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

Updated


Claim. B. Green and T. Tao, On sets defining few ordinary lines, Discrete & Computational Geometry 50 (2013), no. 2, 409--468 (source card), prove in Theorem 1.3 that there is an n0n_0 such that every set of n≥n0n\ge n_0 points in the plane has at most ⌊n(n−3)/6⌋+1\lfloor n(n-3)/6\rfloor+1 lines containing exactly three of its points. The cubic-curve construction recorded on the Burr--Grünbaum--Sloane claim page attains this number, so in the notation of Problem 669 f3(n)=⌊n(n−3)/6⌋+1f_3(n)=\lfloor n(n-3)/6\rfloor+1 for all large nn. The proof rests on a structure theorem: a set with few ordinary lines lies, up to a bounded number of points, on a cubic curve.

Covers. The exact value of f3(n)f_3(n) for all large nn. It gives no exact value of F3(n)F_3(n) and nothing for k≥4k\ge4.

Depends on. Burr, Grünbaum and Sloane's claim, for the matching construction.

Acceptance. Refereed: the paper appeared in Discrete & Computational Geometry. The site's page does not cite it, and the site labels the problem OPEN, so no curator review is listed.