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Filling two gaps without a four-term progression

Question

Take the list 3,4,5,a,b,30,40,503,4,5,a,b,30,40,50 with a,ba,b integers. How many ordered pairs (a,b)(a,b) make the list strictly increasing while ensuring that no four of its entries, taken in any order, form an arithmetic progression?

Short answer

228228. We need 5<a<b<305<a<b<30. Values 66 and 2020 are excluded (they complete 3,4,5,63,4,5,6 and 20,30,40,5020,30,40,50), leaving (222)=231\binom{22}{2}=231 pairs; the pairs (7,9)(7,9), (12,21)(12,21) and (16,28)(16,28) create progressions 3,5,7,93,5,7,9; 3,12,21,303,12,21,30; 4,16,28,404,16,28,40, so 231−3=228231-3=228 (confirmed by brute force).

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