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Problem #56: Let $N\geq p_k$ where $p_k$ is the $k$th prime

Let $N\geq p_k$ where $p_k$ is the $k$th prime. Suppose $A\subseteq \{1,\ldots,N\}$ is such that there are no $k+1$ elements of $A$ which are...

Problem Statement

Let $N\geq p_k$ where $p_k$ is the $k$th prime. Suppose $A\subseteq \{1,\ldots,N\}$ is such that there are no $k+1$ elements of $A$ which are relatively prime. An example is the set of all multiples of the first $k$ primes. Is this the largest such set?
Categories: Number Theory Intersecting Family

Progress

This was disproved for $k=212$ by Ahlswede and Khachatrian [AhKh94], who suggest that their methods can disprove this for arbitrarily large $k$.

Erdős later asked ([Er92b] and [Er95]) if the conjecture remains true provided $N\geq (1+o(1))p_k^2$ (or, in a weaker form, whether it is true for $N$ sufficiently large depending on $k$).

Ahlswede and Khachatrian [AhKh95] proved this latter claim: in other words, for any fixed $k$, if $N$ is sufficiently large depending on $k$ then the largest such set is the set of all multiples of the first $k$ primes.

See also [534].

This is discussed in problem B26 of Guy's collection [Gu04].

Source: erdosproblems.com/56 | Last verified: January 13, 2026

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