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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 900 holds: there is a function f:(1/2,∞)→Rf:(1/2,\infty)\to\mathbb R with f(c)→0f(c)\to0 as c→1/2c\to1/2 and f(c)→1f(c)\to1 as c→∞c\to\infty such that, for every fixed c>1/2c>1/2, the uniform random graph with nn vertices and cncn edges has a path of length at least f(c)nf(c)n with probability tending to 11. The claimed result is M. Ajtai, J. Komlós and E. Szemerédi, The longest path in a random graph, Combinatorica 1 (1981), no. 1, 1--12 (received 12 September 1979; issued March 1981, the nominal first day of which is this page's date), in the version of record (card). Its Theorem 2 (p. 2): the random graph Gn,βn′G'_{n,\beta n} with nn vertices and βn\beta n edges, β>1/2\beta>1/2, almost surely contains a path of length cncn with c=c(β)>0c=c(\beta)>0. The paper introduces it as a conjecture of Erdős. Two companion statements on the same page supply the second limit: the Corollary to the directed Exponential rate says that for any prescribed fraction c<1c<1 a large enough edge coefficient makes a directed path of length cncn appear with probability 1−Kϑn1-K\vartheta^n, the next sentence transfers this to the undirected model Gn,pG_{n,p}, p=α/np=\alpha/n, and Remark 2 (pp. 2--3) carries properties preserved under adding or deleting edges, such as containing a path of a given length, between Gn,pG_{n,p} and the uniform model Gn,N′G'_{n,N} with N=p(n2)N=p\binom n2.

How the printed theorems reach the site's statement. The paper defines no single function ff. The problem page's Status support writes the deduction, made in this corpus and not in the paper: let c∗(β)c^*(\beta) be the supremum of the fractions almost surely reached in Gn,βn′G'_{n,\beta n}; Theorem 2 gives c∗(β)>0c^*(\beta)>0, monotonicity in β\beta holds because added random edges cannot shorten the longest path, and the undirected Corollary with Remark 2 gives c∗(β)→1c^*(\beta)\to1; the statement asks for an ff with 0<f<c∗0<f<c^*, f→0f\to0 as β→1/2\beta\to1/2 and f→1f\to1 as β→∞\beta\to\infty, every such ff satisfies the conclusion, and f(β)=(1−12β)min⁡{c∗(β),β−12}f(\beta)=(1-\tfrac1{2\beta})\min\{c^*(\beta),\beta-\tfrac12\} is one: positive and below c∗c^*, at most β−12\beta-\tfrac12, and equal to (1−12β)c∗(β)→1(1-\tfrac1{2\beta})c^*(\beta)\to1 once β≥3/2\beta\ge3/2. The deduction is elementary and carries no independent review. Remark 1 (p. 2) records the independent theorem of Fernandez de la Vega, a path of length (1−2.21/d)n(1-2.21/d)n in Gn,pG_{n,p} with p=1−e−d/np=1-e^{-d/n}, which gives the second limit directly for that model; that paper is not held.

Depends on. Nothing in this wiki; the paper's own statements and the elementary deduction above are the whole argument.

Acceptance. Refereed publication in Combinatorica (Crossref, accessed: volume 1, issue 1, pp. 1--12, issued March 1981), which is the refereed evidence. The reviewed evidence is documented acceptance by a named expert and by the site's curator: Erdős reported in his 1982 collection of recently solved problems (§1, printed p. 69 of Erdős 1982) that Ajtai, Komlós and Szemerédi proved his conjectures on the longest path in a random graph, in the formulation the site uses, and the site's curator, Thomas Bloom, labels the problem proved and credits this paper, with the community database in agreement. Read depth: claims checked for Theorem 2, the Exponential rate, the Corollary and Remarks 1 and 2; the proofs (pp. 4--12) were not read.

Formalization. Boris Alexeev's repository plby/lean-proofs holds, at its commit of 15 September 2026, the file src/latest/ErdosProblems/Erdos900.lean (Lean 4.33.0, Mathlib 4.33.0), whose header declares it a formalization of a solution to Problem 900 with Ajtai, Komlós and Szemerédi as informal authors and Codex and GPT-5.6 Sol as formal authors, and the repository's notes page for the problem. Its docstring states the theorem as a path of positive linear length, with high probability, in every supercritical uniform random graph, and the file prints the axioms of its final theorem Erdos900.erdos_900. This page rests on the file's header and docstring only; no build, audit or kernel check of it is recorded, and the formal statement was not compared with the problem's wording, so the page lists no formalized evidence.