Logo
All Random Solved Random Open
1 solved out of 3 shown (show only solved or open)
OPEN - $100
Let $A\subseteq\mathbb{R}$ be an infinite set. Must there be a set $E\subset \mathbb{R}$ of positive measure which does not contain any set of the shape $aA+b$ for some $a,b\in\mathbb{R}$ and $a\neq 0$?
The Erdős similarity problem.

This is true if $A$ is unbounded or dense in some interval. It therefore suffices to prove this when $A=\{a_1>a_2>\cdots\}$ is a countable strictly monotone sequence which converges to $0$.

Steinhaus [St20] has proved this is false whenever $A$ is a finite set.

This conjecture is known in many special cases (but, for example, it is open when $A=\{1,1/2,1/4,\ldots\}$, which is Problem 94 on Green's open problems list). For an overview of progress we recommend a nice survey by Svetic [Sv00] on this problem. A survey of more recent progress was written by Jung, Lai, and Mooroogen [JLM24].

Additional thanks to: Vjekoslav Kovac
OPEN
Is there some $c>0$ such that every measurable $A\subseteq \mathbb{R}^2$ of measure $\geq c$ contains the vertices of a triangle of area 1?
Erdős (unpublished) proved that this is true if $A$ has infinite measure, or if $A$ is an unbounded set of positive measure.
Additional thanks to: Vjekoslav Kovac
SOLVED
Let $A\subseteq \mathbb{R}^2$ be a measurable set with infinite measure. Must $A$ contain the vertices of an isosceles trapezoid of area $1$? What about an isosceles triangle, or a right-angled triangle, or a cyclic quadrilateral, or a polygon with congruent sides?
Erdős and Mauldin (unpublished) claim that this is true for trapezoids in general, but fails for parallelograms (a construction showing this fails for parallelograms was provided by Kovač) [Ko23].

Kovač and Predojević [KoPr24] have proved that this is true for cyclic quadrilaterals - that is, every set with infinite measure contains four distinct points on a circle such that the quadrilateral determined by these four points has area $1$. They also prove that there exists a set of infinite measure such that every convex polygon with congruent sides and all vertices in the set has area $<1$.

Koizumi [Ko25] has resolved this question, proving that any set with infinite measure must contain the vertices of an isosceles trapezoid, an isosceles triangle, and a right-angled triangle, all of area $1$.

Additional thanks to: Vjekoslav Kovac