English

Computer-Aided Proof of Erdos Discrepancy Properties

Discrete Mathematics 2014-05-26 v2 Logic in Computer Science

Abstract

In 1930s Paul Erdos conjectured that for any positive integer CC in any infinite ±1\pm 1 sequence (xn)(x_n) there exists a subsequence xd,x2d,x3d,,xkdx_d, x_{2d}, x_{3d},\dots, x_{kd}, for some positive integers kk and dd, such that i=1kxid>C\mid \sum_{i=1}^k x_{i\cdot d} \mid >C. The conjecture has been referred to as one of the major open problems in combinatorial number theory and discrepancy theory. For the particular case of C=1C=1 a human proof of the conjecture exists; for C=2C=2 a bespoke computer program had generated sequences of length 11241124 of discrepancy 22, but the status of the conjecture remained open even for such a small bound. We show that by encoding the problem into Boolean satisfiability and applying the state of the art SAT solvers, one can obtain a discrepancy 22 sequence of length 11601160 and a proof of the Erd\H{o}s discrepancy conjecture for C=2C=2, claiming that no discrepancy 2 sequence of length 11611161, or more, exists. In the similar way, we obtain a precise bound of 127645127\,645 on the maximal lengths of both multiplicative and completely multiplicative sequences of discrepancy 33. We also demonstrate that unrestricted discrepancy 3 sequences can be longer than 130000130\,000.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1405.3097,
  title  = {Computer-Aided Proof of Erdos Discrepancy Properties},
  author = {Boris Konev and Alexei Lisitsa},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1405.3097},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

Revised and extended journal version of arXiv:1402.2184, http://arxiv.org/abs/1402.2184

R2 v1 2026-06-22T04:12:48.069Z