Thomas Bloom

Last updated
Thomas Bloom
NationalityBritish
Alma mater University of Oxford
University of Bristol
Awards Royal Society University Research Fellowship
Scientific career
Institutions University of Cambridge
University of Oxford
University of Bristol
Doctoral advisor Trevor Wooley
Other academic advisors Timothy Gowers

Thomas F. Bloom is a mathematician, who is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. [1] [2] He works in arithmetic combinatorics and analytic number theory.

Contents

Education and career

Thomas did his undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Philosophy at Merton College, Oxford. He then went on to do his PhD in mathematics at the University of Bristol under the supervision of Trevor Wooley. After finishing his PhD, he was a Heilbronn Research Fellow at the University of Bristol. In 2018, he became a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cambridge with Timothy Gowers. In 2021, he joined the University of Oxford as a Research Fellow. [3]

Research

In July 2020, Bloom and Sisask [4] proved that any set such that diverges must contain arithmetic progressions of length 3. This is the first non-trivial case of a conjecture of Erdős postulating that any such set must in fact contain arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions. [5] [6]

In November 2020, in joint work with James Maynard, [7] he improved the best-known bound for square-difference-free sets, showing that a set with no square difference has size at most for some .

In December 2021, he proved [8] that any set of positive upper density contains a finite  such that . This answered a question of Erdős and Graham. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carmichael number</span> Composite number in number theory

In number theory, a Carmichael number is a composite number , which in modular arithmetic satisfies the congruence relation:

In arithmetic combinatorics, Szemerédi's theorem is a result concerning arithmetic progressions in subsets of the integers. In 1936, Erdős and Turán conjectured that every set of integers A with positive natural density contains a k-term arithmetic progression for every k. Endre Szemerédi proved the conjecture in 1975.

In number theory, the Elliott–Halberstam conjecture is a conjecture about the distribution of prime numbers in arithmetic progressions. It has many applications in sieve theory. It is named for Peter D. T. A. Elliott and Heini Halberstam, who stated the conjecture in 1968.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Green (mathematician)</span> British mathematician

Ben Joseph Green FRS is a British mathematician, specialising in combinatorics and number theory. He is the Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Oxford.

In combinatorial number theory, the Erdős–Graham problem is the problem of proving that, if the set of integers greater than one is partitioned into finitely many subsets, then one of the subsets can be used to form an Egyptian fraction representation of unity. That is, for every , and every -coloring of the integers greater than one, there is a finite monochromatic subset of these integers such that

Erdős' conjecture on arithmetic progressions, often referred to as the Erdős–Turán conjecture, is a conjecture in arithmetic combinatorics. It states that if the sum of the reciprocals of the members of a set A of positive integers diverges, then A contains arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prime gap</span> Difference between two successive prime numbers

A prime gap is the difference between two successive prime numbers. The n-th prime gap, denoted gn or g(pn) is the difference between the (n + 1)-th and the n-th prime numbers, i.e.

In number theory, the Green–Tao theorem, proved by Ben Green and Terence Tao in 2004, states that the sequence of prime numbers contains arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions. In other words, for every natural number k, there exist arithmetic progressions of primes with k terms. The proof is an extension of Szemerédi's theorem. The problem can be traced back to investigations of Lagrange and Waring from around 1770.

In mathematics, arithmetic combinatorics is a field in the intersection of number theory, combinatorics, ergodic theory and harmonic analysis.

The Erdős–Szemerédi theorem in arithmetic combinatorics states that for every finite set of integers, at least one of , the set of pairwise sums or , the set of pairwise products form a significantly larger set. More precisely, the Erdős–Szemerédi theorem states that there exist positive constants c and such that for any non-empty set

Tom Sanders is an English mathematician, working on problems in additive combinatorics at the interface of harmonic analysis and analytic number theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Maynard (mathematician)</span> British mathematician

James Maynard is an English mathematician working in analytic number theory and in particular the theory of prime numbers. In 2017, he was appointed Research Professor at Oxford. Maynard is a fellow of St John's College, Oxford. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cap set</span> Points with no three in a line

In affine geometry, a cap set is a subset of with no three elements in a line. The cap set problem is the problem of finding the size of the largest possible cap set, as a function of . The first few cap set sizes are 1, 2, 4, 9, 20, 45, 112, ....

In mathematics, a square-difference-free set is a set of natural numbers, no two of which differ by a square number. Hillel Furstenberg and András Sárközy proved in the late 1970s the Furstenberg–Sárközy theorem of additive number theory showing that, in a certain sense, these sets cannot be very large. In the game of subtract a square, the positions where the next player loses form a square-difference-free set. Another square-difference-free set is obtained by doubling the Moser–de Bruijn sequence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruzsa–Szemerédi problem</span>

In combinatorial mathematics and extremal graph theory, the Ruzsa–Szemerédi problem or (6,3)-problem asks for the maximum number of edges in a graph in which every edge belongs to a unique triangle. Equivalently it asks for the maximum number of edges in a balanced bipartite graph whose edges can be partitioned into a linear number of induced matchings, or the maximum number of triples one can choose from points so that every six points contain at most two triples. The problem is named after Imre Z. Ruzsa and Endre Szemerédi, who first proved that its answer is smaller than by a slowly-growing factor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salem–Spencer set</span> Progression-free set of numbers

In mathematics, and in particular in arithmetic combinatorics, a Salem-Spencer set is a set of numbers no three of which form an arithmetic progression. Salem–Spencer sets are also called 3-AP-free sequences or progression-free sets. They have also been called non-averaging sets, but this term has also been used to denote a set of integers none of which can be obtained as the average of any subset of the other numbers. Salem-Spencer sets are named after Raphaël Salem and Donald C. Spencer, who showed in 1942 that Salem–Spencer sets can have nearly-linear size. However a later theorem of Klaus Roth shows that the size is always less than linear.

In mathematics, a Stanley sequence is an integer sequence generated by a greedy algorithm that chooses the sequence members to avoid arithmetic progressions. If is a finite set of non-negative integers on which no three elements form an arithmetic progression, then the Stanley sequence generated from starts from the elements of , in sorted order, and then repeatedly chooses each successive element of the sequence to be a number that is larger than the already-chosen numbers and does not form any three-term arithmetic progression with them. These sequences are named after Richard P. Stanley.

Roth's theorem on arithmetic progressions is a result in additive combinatorics concerning the existence of arithmetic progressions in subsets of the natural numbers. It was first proven by Klaus Roth in 1953. Roth's Theorem is a special case of Szemerédi's Theorem for the case .

References

  1. "Thomas Bloom | Mathematical Institute". www.maths.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2022-07-28.
  2. Cepelewicz, Jordana (2022-03-09). "Math's 'Oldest Problem Ever' Gets a New Answer". Quanta Magazine. Retrieved 2022-07-28.
  3. "Thomas Bloom". thomasbloom.org. Retrieved 2022-07-28.
  4. Bloom, Thomas F.; Sisask, Olof (2021-09-01). "Breaking the logarithmic barrier in Roth's theorem on arithmetic progressions". arXiv: 2007.03528 .{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. Spalding, Katie. "Math Problem 3,500 Years In The Making Finally Gets A Solution". IFLScience. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  6. Klarreich, Erica (3 August 2020). "Landmark Math Proof Clears Hurdle in Top Erdős Conjecture". Quanta Magazine. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  7. Bloom, Thomas F.; Maynard, James (24 February 2021). "A new upper bound for sets with no square differences". arXiv: 2011.13266 .
  8. Bloom, Thomas F. (2021-12-07). "On a density conjecture about unit fractions". arXiv: 2112.03726 .{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. Erdos, P.; Graham, R. (1980). "Old and new problems and results in combinatorial number theory". S2CID   117960481.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)