English

Erd\H{o}s's diameter conjecture for separated distances fails in high dimensions

Combinatorics 2026-04-17 v1 Metric Geometry

Abstract

Erd\H{o}s asked whether every nn-point set in Euclidean space whose (n2)\binom{n}{2} pairwise distances are mutually at least 11 apart must have diameter at least (1+o(1))n2(1+o(1))n^2. We disprove this statement by constructing for every prime power qq a set XqRq2+q\mathcal X_q\subset \mathbb R^{q^2+q} of n=q+1n=q+1 points such that all pairwise distances in Xq\mathcal X_q are mutually at least 11 apart, while diam(Xq)(11π2+o(1))n2.\operatorname{diam}(\mathcal X_q)\le\Bigl(1-\frac{1}{\pi^2}+o(1)\Bigr)n^2. The proof is fully formalized in Lean 4.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.15305,
  title  = {Erd\H{o}s's diameter conjecture for separated distances fails in high dimensions},
  author = {Boon Suan Ho},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.15305},
  year   = {2026}
}

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6 pages