Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.
Updated
Claim. N. Hindman, Partitions and sums and products of integers, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 247 (1979), 227--245. Theorem 4.4 (p. 244): every partition of into two cells has distinct with in one cell, and cannot be lowered. Theorem 4.3 (p. 243) is credited to Graham's unpublished computation, which Hindman verified independently; it gives the same for , with sharp. Either theorem gives every -coloring of a set whose sums and products of distinct elements share one color: , , and , with the singletons included as the problem page reads them. Both theorems rest on computer searches: Theorem 4.3 lists its 27 cases and checks one in print, and Theorem 4.4 prints only the extremal partition of . Erdős reported both computations in 1977 (p. 58). Bowen's Theorem 1.1 at (Adv. Math. 462 (2025), 110095; arXiv:2205.12921, 25 May 2022) reproves the case without a computer and gives arbitrarily large such . It settles the same instance and has no page of its own.
Covers. The case of two colors and . Not covered: three or more colors, and .
Depends on. Nothing in this wiki; the result rests on the cited paper.
Acceptance. Refereed: Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 247 (1979), 227--245. The computer searches were not rerun here. The site labels the problem OPEN and cites neither this paper nor Bowen's, so no curator credit is listed.