Some Methods of Erdős Applied to Finite Arithmetic Progressions

Abstract

Since 1934 Erdős has introduced various methods to derive arithmetic properties of blocks of consecutive integers. This research culminated in 1975 when Erdős and Selfridge (Ill J Math 19:292–301, 1975) established the old conjecture that the product of two or more consecutive positive integers is never a perfect power. It is very likely that the product of the terms of a finite arithmetic progression of length at least four is never a perfect power. In the present paper it is shown how Erdős’ methods have been extended to obtain results for arithmetic progressions.