alt Hacker News> no prior solutions found.
This is no longer true, a prior solution has just been found[1], so the LLM proof has been moved to the Section 2 of Terence Tao's wiki[2].
[1] - https://www.erdosproblems.com/forum/thread/281#post-3325
[2] - https://github.com/teorth/erdosproblems/wiki/AI-contribution...
Replies
This illustrates how unimportant this problem is. A prior solution did exist, but apparently nobody knew because people didn't really care about it. If progress can be had by simply searching for old solutions in the literature, then that's good evidence the supposed progress is imaginary. And this is not the first time this has happened with an Erdős problem.
A lot of pure mathematics seems to consist in solving neat logic puzzles without any intrinsic importance. Recreational puzzles for very intelligent people. Or LLMs.
Interesting that in Terrance Tao's words: "though the new proof is still rather different from the literature proof)"
And even odder that the proof was by Erdos himself and yet he listed it as an open problem!