Erdős–Graham problem


In combinatorial number theory, the Erdős–Graham problem is the problem of proving that, if the set of integers greater than one is partitioned into finitely many subsets, then one of the subsets can be used to form an Egyptian fraction representation of unity. That is, for every, and every -coloring of the integers greater than one, there is a finite monochromatic subset of these integers such that
In more detail, Paul Erdős and Ronald Graham conjectured that, for sufficiently large, the largest member of could be bounded by for some constant independent of. It was known that, for this to be true, must be at least Euler's constant.
Ernie Croot proved the conjecture as part of his Ph.D thesis, and later published the proof in the Annals of Mathematics. The value Croot gives for is very large: it is at most. Croot's result follows as a corollary of a more general theorem stating the existence of Egyptian fraction representations of unity for sets of smooth numbers in intervals of the form, where contains sufficiently many numbers so that the sum of their reciprocals is at least six. The Erdős–Graham conjecture follows from this result by showing that one can find an interval of this form in which the sum of the reciprocals of all smooth numbers is at least ; therefore, if the integers are -colored there must be a monochromatic subset satisfying the conditions of Croot's theorem.