Harborth's empty-triangle conjecture for simple drawings

For a simple drawing of KnK_n, let (n)\triangle(n) denote the minimum number of empty triangles among all such drawings. An empty triangle is a triangle induced by three vertices such that the interior of one of its two sides contains no vertex. Harborth's conjecture. It holds that (n)=2n4\triangle(n)=2n-4. Harborth proved the bounds 2(n)2n42\leq\triangle(n)\leq 2n-4; the optimality of the upper bound remains open.

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Primary source

Helena Bergold and Manfred Scheucher, “Investigating Simple Drawings of K_n using SAT”, arXiv:2504.02650 (2025).

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