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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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Claim. The answer to Problem 97 is no. Liam Kruer, Jensen Kohlmeyer and Liam Price, Unit distances in convex polygons, manuscript with a Lean 4 file, published in a GitHub repository on 13 September 2026 and submitted the same day as a full proof claim on the site's proof-claims tab; the tab records the result as obtained using GPT 6 Astra. For a finite planar set PP in strictly convex position, every point a vertex of the convex hull, write u(P)u(P) for the number of unordered pairs at distance one and δ1(P)\delta_1(P) for the least number of points at distance one from a point of PP. Theorem 1.1 states that there are absolute constants CC and n0n_0 such that for every n≥n0n\ge n_0 and every 0<η<1/20<\eta<1/2 there is an nn-point set PP in strictly convex position with

min⁡{δ1(P),u(P)n}≥14log⁡2log⁡2n−Clog⁡2log⁡2log⁡2n,\min\Bigl\{\delta_1(P),\frac{u(P)}n\Bigr\} \ge\frac14\log_2\log_2n-C\log_2\log_2\log_2n,

all of whose points lie in the two open disks of radius η\eta about (0,±12)(0,\pm\frac12), so that its unit-distance graph is bipartite. Since the right side tends to infinity, Corollary 1.2 gives for every kk and every large nn a convex nn-gon each of whose vertices has at least kk other vertices at distance exactly one; k=4k=4 is a convex polygon with no vertex of the kind the question asks for, and the distance is the same at every vertex, which the question does not require. Corollary 4.4 makes the size explicit: a counterexample with at most 3432⋅2360363432\cdot2^{36036} vertices exists, a bound on the number of points and not on their coordinates, which the construction obtains by an existence argument. The construction realizes the incidences of the middle-levels graph of the (2d−1)(2d-1)-cube as unit distances after small rotations, perturbs the radii so that all bounded products of the rotations are distinct, keeps every point extreme through a strict supporting-line inequality, and reaches every large cardinality by vertex deletion and unions of slightly rotated copies. The same theorem gives u(P)=Ω(nlog⁡log⁡n)u(P)=\Omega(n\log\log n) in convex position, the manuscript's answer to Problem 96, and refutes the general form of this problem, that some fixed kk works for every convex polygon; the site's page remarks that Erdős in 1975 [Er75f] credited Danzer with a disproof of that form for every constant, a claim he did not repeat, and the manuscript does not mention Danzer.

Submission note. Posted to erdosproblems.com as a proof claim by Liam Kruer, Jensen Kohlmeyer and Liam Price (account Leeham) on 13 September 2026, giving "GPT 6 Astra" as the AI used:

GPT 6 Astra proves that, for every sufficiently large nn, there is a strictly convex nn-point set in which every point has at least (14−o(1))log⁡2log⁡2n(\frac14-o(1))\log_2\log_2 n unit-distance neighbours, and which determines at least (14o(1))nlog⁡2log⁡2n(\frac14 o(1))n\log_2\log_2 n unit-distance pairs. This disproves Erdos Problems 96 and 97, including the general version of 97: for every kk, there is a convex polygon in which every vertex has at least kk other vertices at the same distance~1. Moreover, the points can be confined to two arbitrarily small disks whose centres are one unit apart, so the unit-distance graph is bipartite. Notes: The original argument came from an autonomous run of GPT 6 Astra in Codex which disproved Erdos Problem 96. Later we realised this could also disprove 97 as well as the general version with some help from Astra. The Lean formalisation was also completed by Astra.

Claimant. The three authors publish the claim; the manuscript's AI disclosure says that the argument originated in a disproof of Problem 96 generated entirely by GPT 6 Astra, that the strengthening, the consequences for this problem and its general form and the extension to every large cardinality were developed in further interaction with the model, which also wrote the exposition, and that the human authors take responsibility for the claims; the tab's notes add that the Lean formalization was also completed by Astra. The repository first published at Leeham06972452/erdos-96-97, the address the tab's links of 13 September 2026 give, returned no page on 7 October 2026; a comment of 28 September 2026 on the entry gives the present address, whose README says it republishes the original history unchanged and names the commit linked above as the version submitted for review.

Formalization. The single file Erdos9697Complete.lean, linked above at the pinned commit, imports Mathlib under Lean v4.33.1 and reproduces the problem definitions itself. Its README lists Proof.erdos_97_false as the negation of the four-equidistant-vertices statement, Proof.erdos_97_general_false for the general fixed-kk form, Proof.explicit_erdos_97_counterexample for the explicit cardinality bound, and Proof.main_theorem for Theorem 1.1, and says that the file's last section audits the axioms of 33 results, failing on any axiom outside propext, Classical.choice and Quot.sound, and that the authors checked the build. The corpus has not built the file and has not compared its statements with the question, so no formalized evidence is listed.

Standing. The manuscript is unpublished and unrefereed. The site's export of 2026-09-04 records the label "FALSIFIABLE", and its page was last edited on 27 October 2025; of the three comments on the entry, one of 14 September 2026 is the site's curator's, saying that Bloom has thought much about the problem, had worked at proving a linear bound for Problem 96, and looks forward to reading the proof, which is not an acceptance; the others are a congratulation and the authors' new address. No outside review is recorded. The claim is therefore claimed, and the problem's standing is claimed through it. The separate disproof of Problem 96 by two of the authors, a Lean proof certified by the bounty site Conjectures.io on 14 September 2026, is on its own claim page. That result also yields a counterexample to this problem: with d=13d=13 it gives a set in strictly convex position with more than three unit pairs per point, and deleting points with at most three others at distance one leaves a nonempty set in strictly convex position in which every point has at least four, as the site's remarks on Problems 96 and 97 anticipate and as this manuscript's Lemma 4.1 and Remark 4.5 state in general. Kruer and Kohlmeyer's explanation does not state the consequence, so no page attributes a disproof of this problem to them, and the problem's standing is derived from its own claim pages. The manuscript's answer to Problem 96 has [[problems/distance_problems/E0096/claims/2026_09_13_kruer_kohlmeyer_price|its own claim page]] there.