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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 statement of Problem 144 holds: the integers nn with two divisors d1<d2<2d1d_1<d_2<2d_1 have asymptotic density one. Maier and Tenenbaum prove more. Let E(n)E(n) be the least value of log⁡(d′/d)\log(d'/d) over pairs of divisors d<d′d<d' of nn. Their Theorem 1 states that for any function ξ(n)\xi(n) tending to infinity,

E(n)≤(log⁡n)1−log⁡3exp⁡(ξ(n)log⁡log⁡n)E(n)\leq(\log n)^{1-\log 3}\exp\bigl(\xi(n)\sqrt{\log\log n}\bigr)

for all nn outside a set of density zero (the repository's reading of the statement is on the card Maier and Tenenbaum 1984). Since 1−log⁡3<01-\log 3<0, the right side tends to zero for slowly growing ξ\xi, so almost all nn have divisors with d′/d<1+(log⁡n)−βd'/d<1+(\log n)^{-\beta} for every β<log⁡3−1\beta<\log 3-1, and in particular with d′/d<cd'/d<c for every fixed c>1c>1. The case c=2c=2 is the problem; the arbitrary cc is the stronger form Erdős asked for in 1979.

Sharpness. Erdős and Hall had shown (Erdős and Hall 1979) that the integers with divisors d<d′<d(1+(log⁡n)−β)d<d'<d(1+(\log n)^{-\beta}) have density zero when β>log⁡3−1\beta>\log 3-1, and that paper withdrew Erdős's 1964 claim of the density-one statement for β<log⁡3−1\beta<\log 3-1, recorded on its own page; Theorem 1 supplies that statement, so the exponent log⁡3−1\log 3-1 is the threshold.

Formalization. The linked Lean file in Boris Alexeev's repository declares itself a formalization of a solution to the problem with Maier and Tenenbaum as informal authors and Codex and GPT-5.6 Sol as formal authors; its docstring says it specializes their result to the factor two the problem asks for. The link is pinned to the last commit that touched the file, which was added on 2026-08-17; the community database records the site's formal status on 2026-08-24. The formal-conjectures project had no statement file for this problem on 2026-10-07. This corpus has not built or audited the file, so no formalized evidence is listed.

Acceptance. The site's curator, T. F. Bloom, marks the problem proved and credits this paper, which the page lists as reviewed. The paper is H. Maier and G. Tenenbaum, On the set of divisors of an integer, Invent. Math. 76 (1984), no. 1, 121--128, received 1983-09-20, a refereed journal, listed as refereed. The page is dated by the publisher's record, which gives February 1984 for the issue; the first day of that month stands in for the issue date.