Related papers: On a problem involving unit fractions

We investigate a fifty-year-old conjecture of Erd\H{o}s and Graham concerning whether the binomial coefficient ${n \choose k}$ with $1 \leq k \leq \frac{n}{2}$ must always have a divisor $\leq n$ that is ``close'' to $n$: that is, bigger…

A more sums than differences (MSTD) set is a finite subset S of the integers such |S+S| > |S-S|. We show that the probability that a uniform random subset of {0, 1, ..., n} is an MSTD set approaches some limit rho > 4.28 x 10^{-4}. This…

In this paper we study the fundamental problem of finding small dense subgraphs in a given graph. For a real number $s>2$, we prove that every graph on $n$ vertices with average degree at least $d$ contains a subgraph of average degree at…

In their seminal paper Erd\H{o}s and Szemer\'edi formulated conjectures on the size of sumset and product set of integers. The strongest form of their conjecture is about sums and products along the edges of a graph. In this paper we show…

We call a family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of $[n]$ $s$-saturated if it contains no $s$ pairwise disjoint sets, and moreover no set can be added to $\mathcal{F}$ while preserving this property (here $[n] = \{1,\ldots,n\}$). More than 40…

We give a new proof of the discretized ring theorem for sets of real numbers. As a special case, we show that if $A\subset\mathbb{R}$ is a $(\delta,1/2)_1$-set in the sense of Katz and Tao, then either $A+A$ or $A.A$ must have measure at…

A set $S \subseteq V$ of the graph $G = (V, E)$ is called a $[1, 2]$-set of $G$ if any vertex which is not in $S$ has at least one but no more than two neighbors in $S$. A set $S \subseteq V$ is called a $[1, 2]$-total set of $G$ if any…

Using basic tools of mathematical analysis and elementary probability theory we address several problems on the irrationality of series of distinct unit fractions, $\sum_k 1/a_k$. In particular, we study subseries of the Lambert series…

We study the number of values taken by the sums $\sum_{i=u}^{v-1} a_i$, where $a_1,a_2,\dots,a_n$ is a permutation of $1,2,\dots,n$ and $1 \leq u < v \leq n+1$. In particular, we show that for a random choice of a permutation, with high…

Subset Sum is a classical optimization problem taught to undergraduates as an example of an NP-hard problem, which is amenable to dynamic programming, yielding polynomial running time if the input numbers are relatively small. Formally,…

For a graph $H$, the 1-subdivision of $H$, denoted by $H'$, is the graph obtained by replacing the edges of $H$ by internally disjoint paths of length 2. Recently, Conlon, Janzer and Lee (arXiv: 1903.10631) asked the following question: For…

The basic theme of this paper is the fact that if $A$ is a finite set of integers, then the sum and product sets cannot both be small. A precise formulation of this fact is Conjecture 1 below due to Erd\H os-Szemer\'edi [E-S]. (see also…

Let $n$ be a positive integer and let $S$ be a sequence of $n$ integers in the interval $[0,n-1]$. If there is an $r$ such that any nonempty subsequence with sum $\equiv 0$ $\pmod n$ has length $=r,$ then $S$ has at most two distinct…

Erd\H{o}s, Graham, and Selfridge considered, for each positive integer $n$, the least value of $t_n$ so that the integers $n+1, n+2, \dots, n+t_n $ contain a subset the product of whose members with $n$ is a square. An open problem posed by…

A family of subsets $\mathcal{F}$ is intersecting if $A \cap B \neq \emptyset$ for any $A, B \in \mathcal{F}$. In this paper, we show that for given integers $k > d \ge 2$ and $n \ge 2k+2d-3$, and any intersecting family $\mathcal{F}$ of…

Let $G=(V,E)$ be a graph of density $p$ on $n$ vertices. Following Erd\H{o}s, \L uczak and Spencer, an $m$-vertex subgraph $H$ of $G$ is called {\em full} if $H$ has minimum degree at least $p(m - 1)$. Let $f(G)$ denote the order of a…

A set of integers greater than 1 is primitive if no element divides another. Erd\H{o}s proved in 1935 that the sum of $1/(n \log n)$ for $n$ running over a primitive set $A$ is universally bounded over all choices for $A$. In 1988 he asked…

A folklore result attributed to P\'olya states that there are $(1 + o(1))2^{\binom{n}{2}}/n!$ non-isomorphic graphs on $n$ vertices. Given two graphs $G$ and $H$, we say that $G$ is a unique subgraph of $H$ if $H$ contains exactly one…

We discuss several questions concerning sum-free sets in groups, raised by Erd\H{o}s in his survey "Extremal problems in number theory" (Proceedings of the Symp. Pure Math. VIII AMS) published in 1965. Among other things, we give a…

According to a classical result of Spencer, Szemer\'edi, and Trotter (1984), the maximum number of times the unit distance can occur among $n$ points in the plane is $O(n^{4/3})$. This is far from Erd\H{o}s's lower bound, $n^{1+O(1/\log\log…