All Questions
122 questions
21
votes
1
answer
739
views
Does $A-A=\mathbb Q$ hold for $A=\{x^4+y^4:\ x,y\in\mathbb Q\}$?
Let $A=\{x^4+y^4:\ x,y\in\mathbb Q\}$. Then
$$A-A:=\{a-b:\ a,b\in A\}=\{u^4+v^4-x^4-y^4:\ u,v,x,y\in\mathbb Q\}.$$
Motivated by Question 415482, here I ask the following question.
Question. Is it true ...
- 1,567
7
votes
2
answers
603
views
Density version of the Erdős-Graham conjecture
In 2003 E. S. Croot [Ann. of Math. 157(2)(2003), 545-556] proved the Erdős-Graham Conjecture which states that if $\{2,3,\ldots\}$ is partitioned into finitely many subsets then one of the subsets ...
- 105k
5
votes
0
answers
185
views
Gaps in sumsets and difference sets
a) Let $S\subset \{1,2,\dotsc,N\}$ be a fairly thick set (with at least $N^{1-\epsilon}$ elements, say). Suppose that the intersection of, say,
$$3 S - 3 S = \{a_1+a_2+a_3-(a_4+a_5+a_6): a_1,\dotsc,...
CommunityBot
- 1
59
votes
2
answers
4k
views
For a finite set A of positive reals, prove that the set A + A - A contains at least as many positive as negative elements
I am currently working on a proof that would need to use the following theorem that I cannot prove:
"Let $A$ be a finite set of positive real numbers. Then, the set $A + A - A$ contains at least ...
- 3,499
7
votes
0
answers
176
views
Sumsets that contains many squares, Improvement on the bound
I'm being troubled by this problem on AoPS:
https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c6h1998237p13955033
I searched for any literature related to it such as
Nguyen, Hoi H., and Van H. Vu., Squares ...
- 1,354
5
votes
0
answers
307
views
On $s$-additive sequences
For a non-negative integer $s$, a strictly increasing sequence of positive integers $\{a_n\}$ is called $s$-additive if for $n>2s$, $a_n$ is the least integer exceeding $a_{n-1}$ which has ...
- 791
3
votes
2
answers
224
views
Unique "clique" of differences in $\mathbb{Z}/m\mathbb{Z}$
Are there absolute constants $0 < \epsilon < 1$ and $N \in \mathbb{N}$ such that the following holds: For every $m \in \mathbb{N}$ and every $A \subseteq \mathbb{Z}/m\mathbb{Z}$ with $\frac{\...
- 73
2
votes
0
answers
278
views
On $(k,\ell)$-sumfree sets
Call a set $\mathcal S \subset \mathbb N$ to be $(k,\ell)$-sumfree if there are no non-trivial solutions to the equation
$$x_1+\dots +x_k = y_1+\dots +y_\ell$$
in the set (for distinct $x_i$'s and $...
- 791
10
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Binomial coefficient in Andrews' partition book
First of all, I think MathOverflow is a very great community to discuss math, either basic or advanced, and I'm glad to participate here. It's my first post, so I'm sorry if i did anything wrong, and ...
- 4,713
5
votes
2
answers
691
views
Representing natural numbers as sums of distinct prime powers
I am investigating whether every natural number $n > 18$ can be represented as a sum $p_1^{m_1} + \dots + p_k^{m_k}$, where $p_1, \dots, p_k$ are distinct primes, and $m_1, \dots, m_k$ are distinct ...
- 105k
1
vote
1
answer
200
views
Instance of polynomial van der Waerden without good bounds
Let $P\subset \Bbb{Z}[X]$ be a finite set of polynomials with constant-term zero. Then, polynomial vdW says:
For eacg finite $r$, there exists some $N=N(P,r)$, such that every $r$-coloring $C:\{1,\...
- 383
16
votes
2
answers
1k
views
The Stable Set Conjecture
A set $\mathcal S$ of positive integers is called stable if for every fixed positive integer $d$, the relation
$$n\in \mathcal S \iff dn\in \mathcal S$$
holds for almost all positive integers $n$. ...
- 1,203
15
votes
2
answers
750
views
Subsets of $(\mathbb{Z}/p)^{\times n}$
There seems to be some combinatorial fact that every subset $A$ of $G=(\mathbb{Z}/p)^{\times n}$ of cardinality $\frac{p^n-1}{p-1}+1$ containing $\vec{0}$ satisfies $(p-1)A=G$. ($p$ is a prime number....
- 85.6k
6
votes
0
answers
491
views
At most two elements give 1 to n
Fix a positive integer $m$. Let $n$ ( $= n(m)$) be the largest positive integer for which there exists some subset $\{a_1,\ldots,a_m\} \subseteq \{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ of $m$ positive integers between $1$ ...
- 165
3
votes
0
answers
140
views
Counting $A+A-A$ with partial multiplicity
A recent question asked whether, given a finite set of positive numbers $A$, it is always the case that the set $A+A-A$ has more positive than negative elements. Terry Tao showed that this is false (...
- 6,001
3
votes
0
answers
187
views
Szemerédi’s theorem in really dense sets
This question is inspired by Tao’s answer in this post. I have thought about this occasionally for several months without anything concrete.
Question:
Given $\delta>0$ and $k\ge 3$, let $N= N_k(\...
- 3,499
1
vote
0
answers
170
views
A representation problem involving strict partition numbers
For each positive integer $n$, let $q(n)$ denote the number of ways to write $n$ as a sum of distinct positive integers. We call those $q(n)\ (n=1,2,3,\ldots)$ strict partition numbers.
The sequence $...
- 15.6k
2
votes
0
answers
94
views
On fractional parts and Behrend’s construction
Given $\theta \in \Bbb{T}^D := \Bbb{R}^D/\Bbb{Z}^D$, write $f_\theta$ for the homomorphism from $\Bbb{Z}\to \Bbb{T}^D$ induced by $1\mapsto \theta$.
For $x\in \Bbb{T}^D$, let $||x||$ be the smallest $\...
- 3,499
2
votes
1
answer
402
views
Sets with certain property concerning density of sumsets
I am working with subsets of $[n]$ of the form $(A+B)\cap A$, where $A+B$ is a sumset. Namely, I am interested if there are nonempty sets $B$ such that whenever $A$ covers a positive proportion of $[n]...
- 114k
7
votes
2
answers
845
views
Decomposition of a natural number as sum of positive integers
Let $n \in \mathbb{N}$ be a positive natural number and denote by $f(n)$ the number of decompositions of $n$ of the form $n = a+b+c+d$ where $a,b,c,d > 0$ are also positive natural numbers such ...
- 577
4
votes
0
answers
157
views
Multidimensional van der Waerden, bounds for squares
Given $r$, let $f(r)$ be the smallest $N$ such that for any $r$-coloring $C:\{1,\dots,N\}^2 \to \{1,\dots,r\}$, there exists $x,y,d\neq 0$ such that $C((x,y)) = C((x+d,y))= C((x,y+d))=C((x+d,y+d))$.
I ...
- 1,354
1
vote
0
answers
162
views
Difficulty understanding a step in the proof of multiset version of Cauchy-Davenport Theorem
In a paper "G. Kós, L. Rónyai, Alon’s Nullstellensatz for multisets, Combinatorica, 32(5) (2012) 589-605", the authors prove a multiset version of the Cauchy-Davenport Theorem (please see ...
- 167
1
vote
1
answer
115
views
Cardinality of $\{ n_i + i^k: i \in \mathbb{N} \} \cap [1,T]$ where $\{n_i \}$ is all natural numbers in some order
Let $n_1, n_2, ...$ be a sequence of natural numbers such that $\{n_i: i \in \mathbb{N}\}$ as a set is all of natural numbers. Let $k$ be a positive integer. Is is possible to obtain a lower bound of ...
- 105k
14
votes
2
answers
902
views
Sylvester–Gallai theorem for small sets in a finite field
The well-known Sylvester–Gallai Theorem states that a set of $n>2$ points in $R^2$ not all on a line contains two points such that the line passing through these two points does not contain a third ...
- 156k
6
votes
4
answers
627
views
Request for an exact formula related to a partition in number theory
The Frobenius equation is the Diophantine equation $$
a_1 x_1+\dots+a_n x_n=b,$$
where the $a_j$ are positive integers, $b$ is an integer, and a solution $$(x_1, \dots, x_n)$$
must consist of non-...
- 17k
1
vote
2
answers
204
views
Only trivial solutions to system of linear diophantine equations possibly related to hamiltonian cycles in graphs
This might be related to counting hamiltonian cycles.
@Peter Taylor gave negative result about the one dimensional case, but we believe his attack is
not directly applicable to this question.
Given ...
- 186
2
votes
1
answer
179
views
Only trivial solution to a pair of constrained linear diophantine equations
Given positive integer $n$, we are looking for a set
of $n$ positive integers $a_i$.
The following linear integer program must have only
the trivial integer solution of all ones.
$0 \le x_i \le \frac{...
- 7,226
9
votes
0
answers
265
views
If $A+A+A$ contains the extremes, does it contain the middle?
Let $b \ge 1$ and $A\subseteq [0,b]$ be a set of integers (all intervals will be of integers).
Write $hA := \underbrace{A + \ldots + A}_{h\text{ summands}} = \{ \sum_{i=1}^h a_i ~|~a_i \in A,\, \...
- 1,355
3
votes
1
answer
357
views
higher dimensional analogue of EGZ theorem
The EGZ theorem states that any multiset of $2n-1$ integers has a subset of size $n$ the sum of whose elements is a multiple of $n$.
Kemnitz-Reiher theorem is a 2-dimensional analogue of EGZ. Here is ...
- 132
4
votes
1
answer
436
views
On the constants in the Cameron–Erdős conjecture on sum-free subsets
The Cameron–Erdős conjecture was proved independently by Ben Green (The Cameron-Erdos Conjecture) and Alexander Sapozhenko (The Cameron-Erdős conjecture).
Let $s(n)$ be the number of sum-free subsets ...
- 4,713
3
votes
0
answers
144
views
Flat polynomials with factors of big height
Let $p(x)$ be a polynomial of degree $n$ with all coefficients in $\{-1,0,1\}$ (such polynomials are sometimes called flat). I am wondering how big the coefficients of a factor of $p$ can be. Call ...
- 13.4k
4
votes
0
answers
154
views
How many convex or concave subsets are contained in an arbitrary set of $n$ real numbers?
This question is closely related to this post. A set $A=\{a_1<a_2<\dots<a_n\} \subset \mathbb R$ is said to be convex if the consecutive differences are non-decreasing, i.e. if $a_{j+1} - a_j ...
- 39.9k
2
votes
1
answer
213
views
Coefficient of a term in a several variable polynomial multipled with Vandermonde determinant
Let $\Delta_n(x_1, \ldots, x_n)$ denote the Vandermonde determinant $\displaystyle \prod_{1 \leq i < j \leq n}(x_j - x_i)$. Let $c_1, \ldots, c_n$ and $K$ be nonnegative integers satisfying
$$c_1 + ...
- 109k
5
votes
2
answers
707
views
Distribution of some sums modulo p
Fix a finite set of integers $S$ and a prime number $p$. Let $(a_1, a_2, \dotsc, a_n)$, $(b_1, b_2, b_3, \dotsc, b_n)$ be two sequences of integers where the numbers $a_i$ and $b_i$ are chosen ...
- 114k
8
votes
1
answer
380
views
Question about estimating random symmetric sums modulo p
Let $n > 0$ be a positive integer (large) and $p > 2$ a fixed prime number. What is the probability that $$\sum_{ 1 \leq i < j \leq n} a_ia_j = 0 \mod p$$ where $a_1, a_2, \dots a_n$ are ...
- 1,101
6
votes
5
answers
961
views
What makes a set random?
There are many results in number theory, where the existence
of some $B \subseteq \mathbb{N}$ with certain properties is proved by
a probabilistic argument employing "random sets". One such ...
- 4,219
19
votes
4
answers
865
views
Size of sets with complete double
Let $[n]$ denote the set $\{0,1,...,n\}$. A subset $S\subseteq [n]$ is said to have complete double if $S+S=[2n]$. Let $m(n)$ be the smallest size of a subset of $[n]$ with complete double. My ...
- 4,219
3
votes
3
answers
748
views
Is the sumset or the sumset of the square set always large?
Let A be a finite subset of $\mathbb{N}$, $\mathbb{R}$, or a sufficiently small subset of $\mathbb{F}_{p}$.
Do we have a lower bound of the form $|A|^{1+\delta}$ on the following quantity:
$$\max (|\...
- 1,759
1
vote
0
answers
175
views
For any $n-1$ elements of $\mathbb Z/n\mathbb Z$, we can make $0$ using $\{-,+,\times\}$ without parentheses
MSE: Just using $+$ ,$-$, $\times$ using any given n-1 integers, can we make a number divisible by n? (no brackets allowed)
Is there any hope in proving the following? (Cross-posted here after a ...
- 611
0
votes
0
answers
266
views
Is there a permutation $\tau\in S_n$ with $\tau(1)^{\tau(2)}+\cdots+\tau(n-1)^{\tau(n)}+\tau(n)^{\tau(1)}$ a square?
Let $n>1$ be an integer, and let $S_n$ be the symmetric group of all the permutatins of $\{1,\ldots,n\}$.
I'm curious whether there is a permutation $\tau\in S_n$ such that
$$\tau(1)^{\tau(2)}+\...
- 15.6k
10
votes
2
answers
926
views
Converse to Erdős' conjecture on arithmetic progressions
I apologise in advance if this has been asked here before. I did a search and did not find anything obvious. Erdős' conjecture states that if $A\subseteq {\bf N}$ is such that $\sum_{n\in A} n^{-1}$ ...
- 105k
3
votes
0
answers
179
views
Ellenberg and Gijswijt's result on arithmetic progressions in subsets of $\mathbb{F}_q^n$ and a generalisation to sets of linear equations
Ellenberg and Gijswijt showed that the largest subset of $\mathbb{F}_q^n$ with no three terms in arithmetic progression has size $c^n$ where $c<q$.
Ellenberg and Gijswijt actually proved a ...
- 4,862
5
votes
1
answer
275
views
How to generate $n$ FP32 rationals s.t. no two distinct k-el. subsets have same sum?
First some
Background: I have lots and lots of integer matrices, whose rows are $k$-combinations (without repetitions and sorted) of numbers from the set $S:=\{1,...,n\}$ and needed to be compared ...
CommunityBot
- 1
24
votes
4
answers
3k
views
What is the shortest route to Roth's theorem?
Roth first proved that any subset of the integers with positive density contains a three term arithmetic progression in 1953. Since then, many other proofs have emerged (I can think of eight off the ...
CommunityBot
- 1
1
vote
1
answer
218
views
Average size of iterated sumset modulo $p-1$,
Given a prime $p$, what is the average size of the iterated sumset, $|kA|$, modulo $p-1$, with $p$ a prime, and $k$ given, with $A$ chosen at random?
You can pick any type of prime you like for $p$, ...
CommunityBot
- 1
5
votes
1
answer
218
views
Computational version of inverse sumset question
Let $p$ be prime and $\mathbb{F}_p$ the finite field with $p$ elements. Suppose we have a set $B\subseteq \mathbb{F}_p$ satisfying $|B|<p^{\alpha}$ for some $0<\alpha<1$ and there exists $A\...
- 23k
4
votes
0
answers
194
views
A conjecture on the cardinality of minimal mediated sequences
For a sequence of integer numbers $A=\{0,q_1,\ldots,q_m,p\}$ (arranged from small to large), if every $q_i$ is an average of two distinct numbers in $A$, then we say $A$ is a mediated sequence.
...
- 34.3k
2
votes
2
answers
293
views
Calculating the number of solutions of integer linear equations
Let $N$ be a natural number. Consider the following set of matrices whose entries are non-negative integers:
$$X_N:=\left\{(c_{ij})_{i,j=1}^4\in M_4(\mathbb{Z}_{\geq 0})\bigg| \sum_j c_{1j} = \sum_i ...
CommunityBot
- 1
3
votes
0
answers
147
views
Under what conditions on $A$ and $v$ is the size of the sumset $v \cdot A + A$ over $\mathbb{F}_p$ equal or close to $|A|^2$?
Let $p$ be a prime, let $A$ be a subset of $\mathbb{F}_p$, and let $v \in \mathbb{F}_p \setminus \{0\}$.
Under what conditions is $|v \cdot A + A|$ (that is, $|\{ va + b : a \in A,\ b \in A \}|$) ...
19
votes
3
answers
1k
views
The sum of integers being a bijection
What are the pairs $(P,Q)$ of subsets of $\mathbb N$ for which the map
\begin{eqnarray*}
P\times Q & \rightarrow & {\mathbb N} \\\\
(p,q) & \mapsto & p+q
\end{eqnarray*}
is a bijection ...
- 52.3k