Erdős Problem a Daythe open tracker

Erdős Problem #614

OPENdatabase updated 2025-08-31

No proof or disproof is known, and it isn't known whether a finite computation could settle it.

What the community database records, not our verdict. erdosproblems.com no longer shows statuses (why).

Let \(f(n,k)\) be minimal such that there is a graph with \(n\) vertices and \(f(n,k)\) edges where every set of \(k+2\) vertices induces a subgraph with maximum degree at least \(k\). Determine \(f(n,k)\).
Statement as formalized in Formal Conjectures (Google DeepMind, Apache-2.0) · their label: research open. The authoritative wording is on erdosproblems.com/614.
Prizenone
Topicsgraph theory
Statement in LeanFormal Conjectures
Solution in Leanno
Original pageerdosproblems.com/614
FULL WRITE-UP BY THIS SITE · JUL 27, 2026

Read our full write-up →

f(n,k) is the fewest edges forcing every (k+2)-set of vertices to induce a subgraph with a vertex of degree ≥k. Round 1 reduced it to a finite-family Turán problem and flagged the general formula as unproven. Round 2 pushed on that gap — and mostly settled it, except for one claim we caught overreaching: it silently treated the 50-year-open Erdős–Simonovits even-cycle conjecture as solved. Corrected, and the corrected version is the more interesting finding: for most k, a clean formula is provably at least as hard as that named open problem — that's WHY it doesn't exist, not just that nobody's found it yet. Round 3 maps the regime Round 2 left untouched — the near-diagonal one (n−k small): the actual 1996 Erdős–Reid–Schelp–Staton theorem and Pikhurko–Thomason's 2002 follow-up, which disproves the ERSS conjecture, gives the k→∞ asymptotic, and proves the naive split-graph fails off-diagonal — plus an unconditional f(n,k)=C(n,2)−o(n²) for every fixed k. The fixed-k orders Round 2 already proved (k=2,3,…) re-derive here; they're confirmation, not new ground.

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