# Behrend's Construction

Consider the following statement due to F.Behrend (1946)

Theorem: Let $N$ be a large integer. Then there exists a subset $A\subset [1,N]$ with $\frac{|A|}{N}\geq \exp(-4\sqrt{\ln N})$ which does not contain any arithmetic progression of length three.

By $[1,N]$ I mean the set of integers from this interval.

Informally this theorem states that we can construct a large set of integers which lacks three-term arithmetic progression.

Let me ask the following question: Suppose we have that $\frac{|A|}{N}\geq \exp(-4\sqrt{\ln N})$ then why we say that the set $A$ is large? On one hand, $\exp(-4\sqrt{\ln N})\to 0$ as $N\to +\infty$. On the other hand we call it large?

I would be very thankful for explanation since I am novice in this field of math.

• but the inequality works in the right direction, doesn't it? $|A|\geq \exp(\ln N-4\sqrt{\ln N})\rightarrow\infty$ when $N\rightarrow \infty$. – Carlo Beenakker Apr 5 '18 at 20:28
• @CarloBeenakker, That's what I need! Thanks a lor for answer! +1 – RFZ Apr 5 '18 at 20:36

The term "large" is subjective, of course, but arguably a subset of $\{1,2,\dots,N\}$ of size at least $N^{1-o(1)}$ can be regarded as "large". The set $A$ in the theorem is of that kind, since $\sqrt{\ln N}=o(\ln N)$. See also small-o notation.