Boolean Function Analogs of Covering Systems

Abstract

Bob Hough recently disproved a long-standing conjecture of Paul Erd\H{o}s regarding covering systems. Inspired by his seminal paper, we describe analogs of covering systems to Boolean functions, and more generally, the problem of covering discrete hyper-boxes by non-parallel lower dimensional hyper-subboxes. We point out that very often primes are red herrings. This is definitely the case for covering system, and who knows, perhaps also for the Riemann Hypothesis.