Ostmann's inverse Goldbach conjecture

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Let P\mathscr P denote the set of all primes. For sets S,TS,T of positive integers, define S∼TS\sim T to mean that their symmetric difference is finite. Ostmann's inverse Goldbach conjecture. There do not exist sets A,B\mathcal A,\mathcal B of positive integers, each with at least two elements, such that

P∼A+B.\mathscr P\sim \mathcal A+\mathcal B.

This is the inverse form of the Goldbach problem: it asks whether the primes can be, up to finitely many exceptions, represented as the sumset of two nontrivial sets. The source presents it as an important motivation for the paired inverse large sieve conjecture; its resolution status is not specified in the supplied text.

References

Primary source

Ernie Croot and Chi Hoi Yip, “A weighted entropy approach for the quadratic inverse large sieve conjecture”, arXiv:2607.15311 (2026).

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RemarkAI-assistedClaimed by OpenAI. The manuscript claims Ostmann's inverse Goldbach conjecture: no finite modification of the primes is A+B for nonnegative integer sets A and B each containing at least two elements. This includes the positive-integer formulation on this page.See full solutionHide full solution

Claimed by OpenAI.

The manuscript claims Ostmann's inverse Goldbach conjecture: no finite modification of the primes is A+B for nonnegative integer sets A and B each containing at least two elements. This includes the positive-integer formulation on this page.

GitHub repository: https://github.com/openai/math

Manuscript: https://github.com/openai/math/blob/adc7f1241b42e322a6451854ab7e4b4c146bf78a/preprints/the-additive-indecomposability-of-the-primes-September-24-2026/paper.pdf

  • OpenAI-013-01-The-additive-indecomposability-of-the-primes.pdf764,239 bytesOpen