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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. For every fixed k≥4k\ge4 there is, for all large nn, a 33-uniform hypergraph on nn vertices with (1/6−o(1))n2(1/6-o(1))n^2 edges in which no jj vertices span j−2j-2 or more edges for any 4≤j≤k4\le j\le k. This is Theorem 1.2 of Glock, Kühn, Lo and Osthus 2020, stated there for (k−2)(k-2)-sparse partial Steiner triple systems, where ℓ\ell-sparse means containing no (j+2,j)(j+2,j)-configuration for 2≤j≤ℓ2\le j\le\ell. The construction is a random greedy process that adds triples one at a time subject to keeping the system sparse, shown to run almost to the end with high probability (Theorem 4.4). The same result was obtained independently by Bohman and Warnke (their claim page).

Covers. The theorem gives the lower bound (1/6−o(1))n2(1/6-o(1))n^2 for the corrected Statement's family, the 33-graphs with jj vertices and j−2j-2 edges for some 4≤j≤k4\le j\le k, and linearity gives the upper bound (n2)/3\binom n2/3, since a 33-graph with no member of that family has no two edges sharing a pair, so the theorem settles the corrected Statement for every k≥5k\ge5. For the single family of 33-graphs with kk vertices and k−2k-2 edges that the site's wording defines, the upper bound fails at every kk from 55 to 1010 (Glock's page, the (6,4) page, the (7,5), (8,6) and (9,7) page, the (10,8) page), results that answer only that wording.

Acceptance. Refereed: S. Glock, D. Kühn, A. Lo and D. Osthus, On a conjecture of Erdős on locally sparse Steiner triple systems, Combinatorica 40 (2020), no. 3, 363–403, published online 28 April 2020 after the arXiv posting of 12 February 2018. Reviewed: the site's curator, Thomas Bloom, marks Problem 1076 proved and credits the asymptotic version to this paper [GKLO20] and to Bohman and Warnke [BoWa19], reading the question as the approximate form of Problem 207, the reading the corrected Statement adopts (problem page last edited 7 October 2025, after a comment in the site's thread the day before pointed to the two papers). The card records the theorem from the paper; its proof is unreviewed.

Formalizations. Collin Yuanjie Ren's Lean 4 submission, linked above, states the corrected Statement, forbidding every (j,j−2)(j,j-2)-configuration for 4≤j≤k4\le j\le k at once, and assembles its proof: the upper bound 3 ex≤(n2)3\,\mathrm{ex}\le\binom n2 is elementary, and the lower bound (n−32)≤3 ex\binom{n-3}2\le3\,\mathrm{ex} for large nn is derived from the formalized exact theorem of Kwan, Sah, Sawhney and Simkin on Problem 207, taken verbatim from Boris Alexeev's lean-proofs collection, not from the random process of this paper or of Bohman and Warnke. It therefore formalizes the statement these papers prove rather than their arguments. The submission credits Brown, Erdős and Sós, Bohman and Warnke, Glock, Kühn, Lo and Osthus, and Kwan, Sah, Sawhney and Simkin for the mathematics, claims only the bridge and assembly code, prepared with Claude Code (Claude Fable 5.1) assistance, and reuses the lean-proofs development that refutes the site's wording (Alexeev 2026). The corpus has not built this submission, so this page lists no formalized evidence.