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Related papers: Erd\H{o}s's unit distance problem and rigidity

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We study a family of variants of Erd\H os' unit distance problem, concerning distances and dot products between pairs of points chosen from a large finite point set. Specifically, given a large finite set of $n$ points $E$, we look for…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-12-01 Slade Gunter , Eyvi Palsson , Ben Rhodes , Steven Senger

We show that the maximum number of unit distances or of diameters in a set of n points in d-dimensional Euclidean space is attained only by specific types of Lenz constructions, for all d >= 4 and n sufficiently large, depending on d. As a…

Metric Geometry · Mathematics 2009-03-12 Konrad J Swanepoel

In 1989, Erd\H{o}s conjectured that for a sufficiently large $n$ it is impossible to place $n$ points in general position in a plane such that for every $1\le i \le n-1$ there is a distance that occurs exactly $i$ times. For small $n$ this…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-09-25 David Burt , Eli Goldstein , Sarah Manski , Steven J. Miller , Eyvindur A. Palsson , Hong Suh

We prove new upper bounds for the number of representations of an arbitrary rational number as a sum of three unit fractions. In particular, for fixed $m$ there are at most $\mathcal{O}_{\epsilon}(n^{3/5+\epsilon})$ solutions of…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2018-05-09 Christian Elsholtz , Stefan Planitzer

Let $P$ be a set of $n$ points in the real plane contained in an algebraic curve $C$ of degree $d$. We prove that the number of distinct distances determined by $P$ is at least $c_d n^{4/3}$, unless $C$ contains a line or a circle. We also…

Metric Geometry · Mathematics 2016-07-20 János Pach , Frank de Zeeuw

We consider a problem posed by Erd\H{o}s, Herzog and Piranian on the maximum product of distances of a point set of order $n$ with a given diameter. We prove that it is sufficient to consider convex polygons and obtain results on the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-03-10 Stijn Cambie , Arne Decadt , Yanni Dong , Tao Hu , Quanyu Tang

We prove that every set of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^3$ spans $O(n^{295/197+\epsilon})$ unit distances. This is an improvement over the previous bound of $O(n^{3/2})$. A key ingredient in the proof is a new result for cutting circles in…

Metric Geometry · Mathematics 2022-03-02 Joshua Zahl

The Erd\H{o}s discrepancy problem, now a theorem by T. Tao, asks whether every sequence with values plus or minus one has unbounded discrepancy along all homogeneous arithmetic progressions. We establish weighted variants of this problem,…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2020-07-16 Nikos Frantzikinakis

In 1847, Kirkman proved that there exists a Steiner triple system on $n$ vertices (equivalently a triangle decomposition of the edges of $K_n$) whenever $n$ satisfies the necessary divisibility conditions (namely $n\equiv 1,3 \mod 6$). In…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-08-01 Michelle Delcourt , Cicely , Henderson , Thomas Lesgourgues , Luke Postle

According to the Erd\H{o}s-Szekeres theorem, for every $n$, a sufficiently large set of points in general position in the plane contains $n$ in convex position. In this note we investigate the line version of this result, that is, we want…

Metric Geometry · Mathematics 2015-04-20 Imre Bárány , Edgardo Roldán-Pensado , Géza Tóth

In this paper, we study the cardinality of the distance set $\Delta(A, B)$ determined by two subsets $A$ and $B$ of the $d$-dimensional vector space over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$. Assuming that $A$ or $B$ lies in a $k$-coordinate plane…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-06-10 Hunseok Kang , Doowon Koh , Firdavs Rakhmonov

Motivated by intuitions from projective algebraic geometry, we provide a novel construction of subsets of the $d$-dimensional grid $[n]^d$ of size $n - o(n)$ with no $d + 2$ points on a sphere or a hyperplane. For $d = 2$, this improves the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-06-24 Zichao Dong , Zijian Xu

As an extension of Polya's classical result on random walks on the square grids ($\Z^d$), we consider a random walk where the steps, while still have unit length, point to different directions. We show that in dimensions at least 4, the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-08-10 Simão Herdade , Van Vu

It is shown that $n$ points and $e$ lines in the complex Euclidean plane ${\mathbb C}^2$ determine $O(n^{2/3}e^{2/3}+n+e)$ point-line incidences. This bound is the best possible, and it generalizes the celebrated theorem by Szemer\'edi and…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-07-10 Csaba D. Toth

Let $S$ be a set of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^d$, where $d \geq 2$ is a constant, and let $H_1,H_2,\ldots,H_{m+1}$ be a sequence of vertical hyperplanes that are sorted by their first coordinates, such that exactly $n/m$ points of $S$ are…

We consider a finite fields version of the Erd\H{o}s-Falconer distance problem for two different sets. In a certain range for the sizes of the two sets we obtain results of the conjectured order of magnitude.

Number Theory · Mathematics 2012-11-26 Rainer Dietmann

We study a finite form of the classical interval discrepancy problem. Starting from the unit interval, one repeatedly splits an existing interval into two until $n$ intervals have been produced. The discrepancy of such a process is the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-05-29 Jared DeLeo , Owen Henderschedt , Chris Wells

A famous conjecture of Erd\H os and Straus is that for every integer $n\ge2$, $4/n$ can be represented as $1/x+1/y+1/z$, where $x,y,z$ are positive integers. This conjecture was generalized to $5/n$ by Sierpi\'nski, and then Schinzel…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2026-01-16 Carl Pomerance , Andreas Weingartner

A point set $P \subset {\Bbb{R}}^d$ is {\it separated} if the minimum distance between any two points in $P$ is at least $1$. For $d \ne 4,5,$ we determine, for every $t_1,t_2 \ge 1$, and for $n$ at least a suitable $n_d$, the maximum…

Metric Geometry · Mathematics 2025-10-07 P. Erdős , E. Makai, , J. Pach

Let $\{a_1, . . . , a_n\}$ be a set of positive integers with $a_1 < \dots < a_n$ such that all $2^n$ subset sums are distinct. A famous conjecture by Erd\H{o}s states that $a_n>c\cdot 2^n$ for some constant $c$, while the best result known…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-10-31 Simone Costa , Marco Dalai , Stefano Della Fiore