The board / combinatorics / #732
Erdős Problem #732
PROVEDdatabase updated 2025-08-31
The statement as posed is true, and a proof exists.
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Call a sequence \(1< X_1\leq \cdots \leq X_m\leq n\) block-compatible if there is a pairwise balanced block design \(A_1,\ldots,A_m\subseteq \{1,\ldots,n\}\) such that \(\lvert A_i\rvert=X_i\) for \(1\leq i\leq m\). (A pairwise block design means that every pair in \(\{1,\ldots,n\}\) is contained in exactly one of the \(A_i\).) Are there necessary and sufficient conditions for \((X_i)\) to be block-compatible? Is there some constant \(c>0\) such that for all large \(n\) there are \[\geq \exp(c n^{1/2}\log n)\] many block-compatible sequences for \(\{1,\ldots,n\}\)?
Statement as formalized in Formal Conjectures (Google DeepMind, Apache-2.0) · their label: research open · 1 further variant / known partial result in the Lean file. The authoritative wording is on erdosproblems.com/732.Prizenone
Topicscombinatorics
Statement in LeanFormal Conjectures
Solution in Leanno
Original pageerdosproblems.com/732
Attempts
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