/- Copyright 2026 The Formal Conjectures Authors. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License. -/ import FormalConjecturesUtil

Erdős Problem 98

References:

    [Er75f] Erdős, Paul, On some problems of elementary and combinatorial geometry. Ann. Mat. Pura Appl. (4) (1975), 99-108.

    [Er83c] Erdős, Paul, Combinatorial problems in geometry. Math. Chronicle (1983), 35-54.

    [Er87b] Erdős, P., Some combinatorial and metric problems in geometry. Intuitive geometry (Siófok, 1985) (1987), 167-177.

    [Er90] Erdős, Paul, Some of my favourite unsolved problems. A tribute to Paul Erdős (1990), 467-478.

    [Er92b] Erdős, Paul, Some of my favourite problems in various branches of combinatorics. Matematiche (Catania) (1992), 231-240.

    [EFPR93] Erdős, Paul and Füredi, Zoltán and Pach, János and Ruzsa, Imre Z., The grid revisited. Discrete Math. (1993), 189-196.

    [Er94b] Erdős, Paul, Some problems in number theory, combinatorics and combinatorial geometry. Math. Pannon. (1994), 261-269.

    [Er97e] Erdős, Paul, Some of my favourite unsolved problems. Math. Japon. (1997), 527-537.

    erdosproblems.com/98

open Finset EuclideanGeometry Filter namespace Erdos98

$h(n)$ is the minimum number of distinct distances determined by any $n$-point set in $\mathbb{R}^2$ in general position (no three collinear, no four cocyclic).

noncomputable def h (n : ) : := sInf {k : | points : Finset ℝ², points.card = n InGeneralPosition points k = distinctDistances points}

Let $h(n)$ be such that any $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^2$, with no three on a line and no four on a circle, determine at least $h(n)$ distinct distances. Does $h(n)/n\to \infty$?

@[category research open, AMS 52] theorem declaration uses 'sorry'erdos_98 : answer(sorry) Tendsto (fun n : ((h n : ) / (n : ))) atTop atTop := True Tendsto (fun n => (h n) / n) atTop atTop All goals completed! 🐙

Erdős could not even prove $h(n)\geq n$. Pach has shown $h(n) < n^{\log_2 3}$. Erdős, Füredi, and Pach [EFPR93] have improved this to $h(n) < n\exp(c\sqrt{\log n})$ for some constant $c>0$.

@[category research solved, AMS 52] theorem declaration uses 'sorry'erdos_98.variants.upper_bound : c > (0 : ), ∀ᶠ n : in atTop, (h n : ) < (n : ) * Real.exp (c * Real.sqrt (Real.log (n : ))) := c > 0, ∀ᶠ (n : ) in atTop, (h n) < n * Real.exp (c * (Real.log n)) All goals completed! 🐙 end Erdos98