The Erdős Distinct Distances Problem is a famous question in combinatorial geometry, proposed by Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős in 1946. The problem asks: given a finite set of points in the plane, how many distinct distances can be formed between pairs of these points? More formally, if we have a set of points in the plane, the goal is to determine a lower bound on the number of distinct distances between these points. Erdős conjectured that the number of distinct distances is at least , meaning that as the number of points increases, the number of distinct distances grows at least proportionally to .
The problem has significant implications in various fields, including computational geometry and number theory. While the conjecture has been proven for numerous cases, a complete proof remains elusive, making it a central question in discrete geometry. The exploration of this problem has led to many interesting results and techniques in combinatorial geometry.
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