Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 iii Paper 130 1 Solution 2026-09-28
Fix a number of colors. For a two-point set whose points are distance apart, take the vertices of a regular simplex with vertices and side length . The pigeonhole principle gives two vertices of one color, and they form the required congruent copy. Thus every two-point set, equivalently every line segment, is a Euclidean Ramsey set.
For an equilateral triangle of side length , take a regular simplex with vertices and side length . The pigeonhole principle gives three vertices of one color, and every three vertices of a regular simplex form an equilateral triangle. Hence every equilateral triangle is Euclidean Ramsey.
To prove the product theorem for Euclidean Ramsey sets, let be a finite Ramsey witness for under colors. There are at most possible color patterns on . Choose a finite Ramsey witness for under that many colors. Given a -coloring of , color each by the complete patternThere is a copy on which this pattern is constant. The common pattern on contains a monochromatic copy . Every point of then has the same original color, and the orthogonal product is congruent to .
A rectangle is the Cartesian product of two line segments, so it is Euclidean Ramsey. Three suitable vertices of a rectangle form a right triangle; any subset of a monochromatic set is monochromatic. Thus every right triangle is Euclidean Ramsey.
It remains to show that the collinear set behaves differently. In every , use the finite coloringA congruent copy has the form with for the Euclidean norm. The parallelogram law givesPut , , and . The errors introduced by the three floor functions show thatIf all three points had one color, the integer in the middle would be divisible by ten, which is impossible. This proves the three-term unit arithmetic progression is not Euclidean Ramsey assertion.
Spherical point set Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-11-05
A finite set is spherical if all its points lie on one sphere: there are a center and radius with for every . Subtracting the squared-distance equation for gives the equivalent linear equationsThus consistency of a finite linear system tests whether a common center exists. A nondegenerate triangle is spherical, with center its circumcenter. Three distinct collinear points are not spherical: the equal-distance equations along their line are inconsistent. This is the geometric obstruction behind three-term unit arithmetic progression is not Euclidean Ramsey.
Every Euclidean Ramsey set is spherical. The converse was historically conjectured. A September2026 preprint by Dömötör Pálvölgyi reports the seven-point configurationas a counterexample. These points do lie on the circle ; the non-Ramsey assertion is Theorem1 of that dated preprint.[ref]
A cyclic non-Ramsey heptagon by Dömötör Pálvölgyi. Theorem1, arXiv:2609.23327v1, 20 September 2026