Unique sequences containing no \(k\)-term arithmetic progressions (Q396958)

Summary: In this paper, we are concerned with calculating \(r(k, n)\), the length of the longest \(k\)-AP free subsequences in \(1, 2, \ldots , n\). We prove the basic inequality \(r(k, n) \leq n - \lfloor m/2\rfloor\), where \(n = m(k - 1) + r\) and \(r < k - 1\). We also discuss a generalization of a famous conjecture of Szekeres (as appears in [\textit{P. Erdős} and \textit{P. Turán}, J. Lond. Math. Soc. 11, 261--264 (1936; Zbl 0015.15203; JFM 62.1126.01)]) and describe a simple greedy algorithm that appears to give an optimal \(k\)-AP free sequence infinitely often. We provide many exact values of \(r(k, n)\) in the Appendix.