Gallai theorem for an integer lattice Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
For every finite , every finite coloring of contains a monochromatic homothetic copy . The theorem follows from the Hales-Jewett theorem by coloring a word according to the sum of the points indexed by its letters.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 130 2 a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The Hales-Jewett theorem states that for positive integers there is such that every -coloring of the words contains a monochromatic combinatorial line.
Here is the standard focused-line proof. Induct on the alphabet size , the case being immediate. Assume the result for and every number of colors. For , prove inductively that some dimension has the following alternative: either there is a monochromatic combinatorial line, or there are color-focused lines, meaning that the lines without their common focus are monochromatic in distinct colors. For , restrict to words on and use the induction hypothesis on .
For the step from to , let work for and view a longer word as . Color each by the complete patternwhich uses at most colors. Taking gives a line on which this entire pattern is constant. Append its missing -letter endpoint. Applying the alternative to the induced coloring of the first block and joining the active coordinate sets produces either a monochromatic line or lines with one common focus and distinct colors. At , the focus has one of the colors, so it completes the line carrying that color. This proves the theorem.
To deduce the Van der Waerden theorem, let and color a word by the color of . On a combinatorial line with active set , these sums area monochromatic arithmetic progression of length .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2026 iii Paper 130 4 Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Let be the vertex set of a regular polygon and let the cyclic rotation group act transitively on it. The finite invariant-colouring lemma says that for every number of colours there are positive weights with such that every colouring of the weighted Cartesian powercontains a monochromatic setFor completeness, prove the lemma along a cyclic composition series for . For a prime cyclic quotient, refine each colour to the finite vector of colours obtained by applying the quotient elements in every active coordinate. The Hales-Jewett theorem supplies a variable block on which this vector is constant. Assign that block squared weights summing to the squared weight of the coordinate it replaces. This makes the quotient orbit monochromatic without changing any orbit distance. Iterating through the cyclic factors proves the lemma for the finite cyclic group .
Because rotations commute, for each coordinate satisfiesfor a fixed vertex . Hence the squared distance between the two corresponding product points isThe monochromatic orbit is therefore isometric to . This proves that every regular polygon is a Euclidean Ramsey set.
Now consider the edge-colouring definition. If all pairwise distances in are equal, then is a regular simplex. Take a sufficiently large regular simplex of the same side length. The ordinary finite Ramsey theorem gives a monochromatic -vertex complete subgraph, and every such vertex set is isometric to . Thus is an edge Ramsey set.
Conversely, if has two distances, let and be its least and greatest distances. Colour every Euclidean edge by whether its length equals . Every isometric copy of contains both an edge of length and one of length , so no copy is monochromatic. Hence the edge Ramsey sets are exactly the equidistant finite sets.
Allowing similar copies does not change the answer. If , colour an edge of length by the parity ofIn every similar copy, the images of a shortest and a longest edge have lengths and , whose displayed integers differ by one. They receive opposite colours. Thus no non-equidistant is edge Ramsey even up to similarity, while the regular-simplex argument already supplies an isometric copy.
Regular polygon is a Euclidean Ramsey set Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Every regular polygon is a Euclidean Ramsey set. A Hales-Jewett theorem combinatorial line in a Cartesian power of its vertex set is a scaled regular polygon; including finitely many reciprocal square-root scalings makes one such line isometric to the original polygon.