Variations on a theorem by van der Waerden

Abstract

The central result presented in this thesis is van der Waerden's theorem on arithmetic progressions. Van der Waerden's theorem guarantees that for any integers k and r, there is an n so that however the set {1, 2, ... , n} is split into r disjoint partition classes, at least one partition class will contain a k-term arithmetic progression. Presented here are a number of variations and generalizations of van der Waerden's theorem that utilize a wide range of techniques from areas of mathematics including combinatorics, number theory, algebra, and topology.