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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. Kyle Bradford's preprint A solution to the Straus-Erdős conjecture (arXiv:2602.11774v1, 12 February 2026) claims that for each prime pp there are positive integers x≤y≤zx\le y\le z with

4p=1x+1y+1z;\frac4p=\frac1x+\frac1y+\frac1z;

its abstract says that the paper "outlines a solution" to the conjecture. Since a solution for a prime scales to every multiple of it and the problem page's Formulation records how repeated terms are made distinct, the claim is a claim of the whole statement of Problem 242.

Standing. Claimed. The arXiv listing shows a single version, not withdrawn, under a CC BY 4.0 license, with no journal reference and no comments field. The preprint reached the site's discussion thread through a reader's comment of 13 February 2026, which reports the solution as claimed; a reply reads the preprint's final sentence on the covering system as a sign that the argument is incomplete and notes that none of Mordell's six residue classes modulo 840840 is excluded, and a further comment advises giving no attention to new preprints on this problem without publication, an author track record, realistic partial claims, an expert vouching or a formalization. These comments are opinions, not a refutation record, so the claim stays pending rather than rejected. It was not submitted to the site's proof-claim tab, no one has accepted it, and the site's label is FALSIFIABLE (page last edited 7 May 2026). Read depth: the abstract, the arXiv record and the thread; the argument is unexamined.