On a question of Mordell.

Booker, Andrew R; Sutherland, Andrew V · Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · 2021

other · Level V

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Abstract

We make several improvements to methods for finding integer solutions to [Formula: see text] for small values of k. We implemented these improvements on Charity Engine's global compute grid of 500,000 volunteer PCs and found new representations for several values of k, including 3 and 42. This completes the search begun by Miller and Woollett in 1954 and resolves a challenge posed by Mordell in 1953.