/- 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. -/ module public import FormalConjecturesUtil public import FormalConjectures.ErdosProblems.«961»

Erdős Problem 683

References:

    erdosproblems.com/683

    [Er34] Erdős, Paul, A Theorem of Sylvester and Schur. J. London Math. Soc. (1934), 282--288.

    [Er55d] Erdős, P., On consecutive integers. Nieuw Arch. Wisk. (3) (1955), 124--128.

    [Er79d] Erdős, P., Some unconventional problems in number theory. Acta Math. Acad. Sci. Hungar. (1979), 71-80.

@[expose] public sectionnamespace Erdos683open Filter Real Erdos961

Let $P(n, k)$ be the largest prime factor of $\binom{n}{k}$.

def P (n k : ) : := (n.choose k).primeFactors.sup id

Let $P(n, k)$ be the largest prime factor of $\binom{n}{k}$. There exists $c > 0$ such that $P(n, k) \ge \min(n - k + 1, k^{1 + c})$ for all $0 < k \le n/2$.

Erdős stated this for $1 \le k \le n$ with the bound $\min(n-k+1, k^{1+c})$ [Er79d]. The minimum is needed even for $k \le n/2$: at $n = 2k$ every prime factor of $\binom{2k}{k}$ is at most $2k$, so $P(n, k) \ge k^{1+c}$ fails for large $k$. The range $k \le n/2$ is natural (cf. #961 and the discussion).

@[category research open, AMS 11] theorem erdos_683 : answer(sorry) c > (0 : ), n k : , 0 < k k n / 2 (P n k : ) min ((n - k + 1) : ) ((k : ) ^ (1 + c)) := True c > 0, (n k : ), 0 < k k n / 2 (P n k) min (↑(n - k + 1)) (k ^ (1 + c)) All goals completed! 🐙

Sylvester and Schur [Er34] proved that $P(n, k) > k$ for $k \le n/2$.

@[category research solved, AMS 11] theorem erdos_683.variant.sylvester_schur : n k : , 0 < k k n / 2 P n k > k := (n k : ), 0 < k k n / 2 P n k > k All goals completed! 🐙

Erdős [Er55d] improved this to $P(n, k) \gg \min(n - k + 1, k \log k)$ for $k \le n/2$. The minimum cannot be dropped: at $n = 2k$ one has $P(n, k) \le 2k$.

@[category research solved, AMS 11] theorem erdos_683.variant.erdos_log : c > 0, n k : , 0 < k k n / 2 (P n k : ) min ((n - k + 1) : ) (c * k * Real.log k) := c > 0, (n k : ), 0 < k k n / 2 (P n k) min (↑(n - k + 1)) (c * k * log k) All goals completed! 🐙

Standard heuristics suggest that $P(n, k) > \min(n - k + 1, e^{c\sqrt{k}})$ for some constant $c > 0$.

@[category research open, AMS 11] theorem erdos_683.variant.exp_sqrt : c > 0, n k : , 0 < k k n / 2 (P n k : ) > min ((n - k + 1) : ) (Real.exp (c * Real.sqrt k)) := c > 0, (n k : ), 0 < k k n / 2 (P n k) > min (↑(n - k + 1)) (rexp (c * k)) All goals completed! 🐙-- TODO: Erdos 683 and 961 are equivalent. end Erdos683