🎉 Congrats, math nerds! After a century of head-scratching, you've finally #solved a #puzzle that literally no one else cared about. 🧩 Now you can sleep peacefully knowing the Kakeya Conjecture is settled—until the next obscure #theorem keeps you up at night! 😴
https://www.quantamagazine.org/once-in-a-century-proof-settles-maths-kakeya-conjecture-20250314/ #mathnerds #KakeyaConjecture #celebration #HackerNews #ngated

'Once in a Century' Proof Settles Math's Kakeya Conjecture

https://www.quantamagazine.org/once-in-a-century-proof-settles-maths-kakeya-conjecture-20250314/

#HackerNews #OnceInACentury #KakeyaConjecture #MathProof #Mathematics #News

33-year-old mathematician Wang Hong from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (CIMS-NYU) has proved the century-old Kakeya conjecture in three dimensions with collaborator Joshua Zahl!

The problem is rooted in the question: what's the smallest area that an infinitely thin needle can sweep out if it has to be turned to point in every possible direction?

News:
[1] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3300958/chinese-maths-star-wang-hong-solves-infamous-geometry-problem
[2] https://english.jagran.com/world/chinese-student-wang-hong-cracked-an-impossible-geometry-puzzle-that-stumped-mathematicians-for-over-a-century-10221886

2023 piece from Quanta Magazine on their earlier progress on the problem:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-proof-threads-the-needle-on-a-sticky-geometry-problem-20230711/

@tao
#WangHong #CIMS #NYU #JoshuaZahl #Kakeya #KakeyaConjecture #ThreeDimensions #Needle #Geometry #QuantaMagazine #Conjecture #AdvancingMaths #Maths #Mathematics #CenturyOld #Tao #TerenceTao

👩‍🎓🔮 Behold, mathematicians have triumphed yet again with another mind-boggling revelation in their infinite quest to complicate #geometry. 😴💡 Terence Tao attempts to excite the masses by updating us on the “spectacular” progress nobody asked for, thanks to the ever-riveting Kakeya conjecture. 📏📐
https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2025/02/25/the-three-dimensional-kakeya-conjecture-after-wang-and-zahl/ #mathematics #KakeyaConjecture #TerenceTao #research #breakthroughs #HackerNews #ngated

The three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture, after Wang and Zahl — https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2025/02/25/the-three-dimensional-kakeya-conjecture-after-wang-and-zahl/
#HackerNews #KakeyaConjecture #Wang #Zahl #Mathematics #Research #Geometry