Coloring so that no Pythagorean Triple is Monochromatic
Combinatorics
2015-05-12 v1 Discrete Mathematics
Logic in Computer Science
Number Theory
Abstract
We address the question of the "partition regularity" of the Pythagorean equation a^2+b^2=c^2; in particular, can the natural numbers be assigned a 2-coloring, so that no Pythagorean triple (i.e., a solution to the equation) is monochromatic? We prove that the hypergraph of Pythagorean triples can contain no Steiner triple systems, a natural obstruction to 2-colorability. Then, after transforming the question into one about 3-CNF satisfiability and applying some reductions, a SAT solver is used to find a 2-coloring for {1,...,7664}. Work continues as we seek to improve the reductions and extend the computation.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1505.02222,
title = {Coloring so that no Pythagorean Triple is Monochromatic},
author = {Joshua Cooper and Ralph Overstreet},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1505.02222},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
14 pages, 6 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:0809.3478