Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.
Updated
Claim. The statement of Problem 548 holds: for , every graph on vertices with at least edges contains every tree on vertices. The proof establishes the sharper classical form, the [[../library/extremal_graph_theory/adamczewski_2026_erdos548/theorem_1|sharp tree-free edge bound]]: for every tree on vertices and every -free graph on vertices, . With this gives for a -free graph, which is incompatible with , and it also gives the strict threshold that the Statement's inequality exceeds by one edge when is odd. The argument counts adjacency-marked cuts in permutations of the vertex set: a rooted count obeys an induction on the order of the tree through a branch-gluing rotation and a leaf-moving involution, and an exact factorial cancellation turns the resulting inequality into the edge bound. The complete reconstruction is on the [[../library/extremal_graph_theory/adamczewski_2026_erdos548/_index|source card]].
Submission note. Posted to erdosproblems.com as a proof claim by GPT-6 Astra (account TFBloom) on 3 September 2026, giving "GPT-6 Astra" as the AI used:
In a run of a pre-release version of GPT-6 Astra by Epoch AI, a proof was formalised; the proof is surprisingly short and elementary. Notes: I have added an informal exposition of this proof to the proof expositions section. I have also asked GPT to generate a human-readable PDF of the proof from the Lean formalisation, linked to below. This has the usual problems with AI quality of exposition, and both this and the informal exposition I have written should be viewed as a placeholder until a proper writeup of this proof can be prepared (volunteers welcome!).
Claimant and postings. The claimant is Tom Adamczewski, the name the
publication carries: the proof repository the site's proof claim links,
pinned above, is Adamczewski's, and the FrontierMath Erdős paper of
Adamczewski and Bloom (arXiv:2609.25050, v1 6 September 2026) and Epoch AI's
report, linked above, record the resolution. The proof was found by GPT-6 Astra,
which the site's proof-claim entry names as its claimant and describes as a
pre-release version of GPT-6 Astra run by Epoch AI; the entry's summary says
the proof was formalized in that run and is short and elementary. The entry
was submitted on the site's proof-claim tab by the site's curator,
T. F. Bloom, on 3 September 2026, the date this page is named by, with the
five-page exposition linked above, which is unsigned prose that GPT
generated from the formal proof at the curator's request. The resolution
module linked above is the formalization GPT-6 Astra produced in that run,
published in the claimant's repository with two mechanical edits, the import
line and a one-line Mathlib port, so it is a link on this page and not a page
of its own. The second Lean link, in the Jayyhk/erdos-lean repository (commit
of 5 September 2026), is a copy of that module with the same header and lemma
names, differing only in its namespace and open lines and an added
#print axioms line; it names no author and is not an independent proof, so
it too is a link on this page. The formal-conjectures statement file for the
problem, added on 7 September 2026, points to that copy through its
formal_proof attribute (added 15 September 2026) and records the problem as
solved; a statement file is not a formalization and the entry is not
acceptance evidence.
Depends on. Nothing in this wiki; the library card linked above holds the reconstruction.
Acceptance. Formalized. This corpus's verification built the repository
at the pinned commit 3766491b of 2026-09-03 (Lean v4.28.0, Mathlib
v4.28.0), compiling the resolution module Erdos548_192usd_21h, which
Solution.lean imports, and checked the axioms of Erdos548.erdos_548 in
the Solution environment; they are exactly propext, Classical.choice
and Quot.sound. The repository's comparator challenge Challenge.lean
pins that declaration, whose statement uses only Mathlib definitions, and
the fingerprint of the proved declaration was found identical to the
challenge. The compared statement is the site's form exactly, audited clause
by clause against the Statement: for naturals , every simple graph
on Fin n with at least edges, the threshold computed in
without truncation, contains every tree on Fin (k + 1) as a
not necessarily induced subgraph; the case is included and trivial,
and meets the threshold for every , so nothing is vacuous. When
is odd this threshold is one edge more than the classical
. The classical form is the lemma tree_free_edge_bound in
the same module, for every tree on vertices and
every -free graph on vertices; the proof of erdos_548 calls
it, so the build and axiom check cover it, but the comparator does not
compare it, and its statement was read, not compared. The Formal Conjectures
statement file for the problem states the same proposition with named
binders. Reviewed: mathematicians independent of the claimant and the
curator have published accounts that affirm the proof: O. Riordan and A.
Scott, A short proof of the Erdős--Sós Conjecture, arXiv:2609.15893 (v1 14
September 2026), a simplified version of the argument that also determines
the extremal graphs; D. R. Wood, The Erdős--Sós Theorem, arXiv:2609.17877
(v1 15 September 2026), an exposition; and B. Frederickson, Erdős-Sós via
random cyclic orderings, arXiv:2609.21159 (v1 18 September 2026), a
simplified proof. None is refereed. The site labels the problem proved and
formalized and its curator credits the proof, but the curator submitted the
site's proof claim themselves and is a co-author of the FrontierMath Erdős
paper, so the curator's credit is not counted as an independent review. Not
refereed: the exposition is a preliminary account that the proof-claim note of 3
September 2026 calls a placeholder pending a proper write-up and an
assessment of the ideas' relation to earlier work, and the FrontierMath
Erdős paper is a preprint. This corpus's own written reconstruction of the
six proof pages passed a fresh proof-chain review on 2026-09-18, recorded on
the source card; that is the project's own review and not acceptance
evidence. The announced proof of Ajtai, Komlós, Simonovits and Szemerédi was
never published, and no priority claim for the ideas is made. The Ramsey
corollaries of the edge bound are recorded on the claim pages of
Problem 547 and
Problem 557.
Read depth. The five pages of the exposition were read and reconstructed on the card's proof pages; the Lean source was read at its principal definitions, count inequalities and final statement, and its compared statement was audited clause by clause, as the Acceptance paragraph records.