On the ratio of two blocks of consecutive integers (Q752740): Difference between revisions

In 1975 \textit{P. Erdős} conjectured [Proc. Fifth Manitoba Conf. Numer. Math., 25-44 (1976; Zbl 0337.10001)] that there are only finitely many non-negative integers x,y,k\(\geq 2,\ell\) with \(k+\ell \geq 3\) satisfying \[ (*)\quad x-y\geq \ell +k\text{ and } a(x+1)...(x+k)=b(y+1)...(y+k+\ell). \] Since then many partial results have been obtained by various authors, however Erdős' conjecture has not yet been settled one way or another. The present authors show that equation (*) has finitely many solutions provided certain, rather technical conditions are satisfied. In particular they show that (*) with \(a=b=1\), \(k=\ell\) has the single solution given by \(x=7\), \(y=0\), \(k=3\). A more general result is that max(x,y,k,\(\ell)\) is bounded by an effectively computable number depending only on a,b,P(x) and P(y), where P is the greatest prime factor function. The technically complicated argument uses an estimate of \textit{A. Baker} [Transcend. Theory Proc. Conf., Cambridge 1976, 1-27 (1977; Zbl 0361.10028)] on linear forms in logarithms and its p-adic analog recently obtained by \textit{Kunrui Yu} [Linear forms in p-adic logarithms. II, Compos. Math. 74, 15-113 (1990)].