English

Sets of unit fractions without two members whose average is a unit fraction

Number Theory 2026-07-16 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

We show that there is a constant c>0c>0 such that, for all sufficiently large NN, there is a subset A{1,,N}A \subseteq \{1,\dots,N\} of size >cN>cN such that for any two distinct elements a,ba,b in AA, the average of 1a\frac{1}{a} and 1b\frac{1}{b} is not a unit fraction, negatively answering a question of Erd\H{o}s and Graham. This also gives the best known lower bounds on the maximum size of a set of unit fractions without non-trivial three-term arithmetic progressions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.15419,
  title  = {Sets of unit fractions without two members whose average is a unit fraction},
  author = {Will Sawin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.15419},
  year   = {2026}
}