Squares, three fleas, sporadic integer sets, and squares

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1. Verfasser: Alkauskas, Giedrius
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Alkauskas, Giedrius
author_facet Alkauskas, Giedrius
contents In the plane, three integer points ("fleas") are given. At every tick of time, two of them (say, P,Q) instantly jump to two vacant points R,S, so that PQRS is a square with that order of vertices. Description of all integers and half-integers which occur as areas of spanned triangles turns out to be unexpectedly intricate problem. For example, if one starts from a triple (0,0), (2,0), (4,1), these positive integers are missed: 2*{0, 1, 4, 15, 16, 20, 79, 84, 95, 119, 156}, with no other up to 3*10^6 (and seemingly, none at all); half-integers which are missed seem to form a 39-element set (the largest of them being 11365/2). However, there exist certain starting setups which have an "integrable" component as part of the answer. We demonstrate that for the initial triple (0,0), (2,1), (3,2), the integers missed as areas are perfect squares, and the the sporadic set {5, 29, 80, 99, 179} with no other elements up to 3*10^6 (most likely, no other at all; all half-integers serve as areas).
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_05347
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Squares, three fleas, sporadic integer sets, and squares
Alkauskas, Giedrius
Number Theory
In the plane, three integer points ("fleas") are given. At every tick of time, two of them (say, P,Q) instantly jump to two vacant points R,S, so that PQRS is a square with that order of vertices. Description of all integers and half-integers which occur as areas of spanned triangles turns out to be unexpectedly intricate problem. For example, if one starts from a triple (0,0), (2,0), (4,1), these positive integers are missed: 2*{0, 1, 4, 15, 16, 20, 79, 84, 95, 119, 156}, with no other up to 3*10^6 (and seemingly, none at all); half-integers which are missed seem to form a 39-element set (the largest of them being 11365/2). However, there exist certain starting setups which have an "integrable" component as part of the answer. We demonstrate that for the initial triple (0,0), (2,1), (3,2), the integers missed as areas are perfect squares, and the the sporadic set {5, 29, 80, 99, 179} with no other elements up to 3*10^6 (most likely, no other at all; all half-integers serve as areas).
title Squares, three fleas, sporadic integer sets, and squares
topic Number Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.05347