All two-color Rado numbers for \(a(x+y)=bz\) (Q1292848): Difference between revisions

Generalizing theorems of Schur and van der Waerden, Richard Rado studied in a famous result the existence of monochromatic solutions to sets of linear equations in the positive integers, if they are colored arbitrarily with \(k\) colors. If such solutions exist, we can ask for the minimum \(N\) such that for a given equation and number of colors there is always a monochromatic solution already in \(\{ 1,\ldots,N\}\). This is the \(k\)-color Rado number of that equation or system of equations. These numbers are known only in very few cases. In this paper, the authors determine the two-color Rado numbers for all \(a,b\) of the equations \(a(x+y) = bz\). Although the final formula involves 14 cases, it seems remarkable that a closed answer could be obtained at all, and depends at least for \(b\geq 4\) only on a few inequality relations beween \(a\) and \(b\).