An Equivalence Between Erdős's Square Packing Conjecture and the Convergence of an Infinite Series

Abstract

Let $f(n)$ denote the maximum sum of the side lengths of $n$ non-overlapping squares packed inside a unit square. We prove that $f(n^2+1)=n$ for all positive integers $n$ if and only if the sum ${\sum }_{k\ge 1}(f(k^2+1)-k)$ converges. We also show that if $f(k^2+1)=k$, for infinitely many positive integers then $f(k^2+1)=k$ for all positive integers.

The paper contains a major flaw. In the proof of the second theorem, we make use of an inequality due to Halasz, which is valid only for small values of c, particularly for c less than k. Our proof ignores this restriction on c, which renders the argument flawed