Hong Wang, an associate professor at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, presenting her work on the Kakeya conjecture on March 10, 2025. Credit: David Song/NYU. Mathematicians from New ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1917, the Japanese mathematician Sōichi Kakeya posed what at first seemed like nothing more than a fun exercise in geometry. Lay an ...

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." A 125-page proof posted to arXiv may represent a huge breakthrough in geometric measure theory. This ...

Japanese mathematician Soichi Kakeya posed a problem in 1917: what is the minimum area a 'needle' of length 1 and infinitesimal thickness must sweep to return to its original position after pointing ...

(via Quanta) 2025 marked a historic year in mathematics. Researchers solved a major case of Hilbert’s ambitious sixth problem ...

(via Quanta) A simple question about a spinning needle has haunted mathematicians for more than a century. It led to the Kakeya conjecture, a cornerstone of modern analysis connecting geometry, ...

2025 marked a historic year in mathematics. Researchers solved a major case of Hilbert’s ambitious sixth problem, proved a sweeping new theorem about hyperbolic surfaces, and settled the longstanding ...

Mathematicians from New York University and the University of British Columbia have resolved a decades-old geometric problem, the Kakeya conjecture in 3D, which studies the shape left behind by a ...

2025 marked a historic year in mathematics. Researchers solved a major case of Hilbert’s ambitious sixth problem, proved a sweeping new theorem about hyperbolic surfaces, and settled the longstanding ...

The Kakeya conjecture lies at the very base of this tower. If it is false, then so are the statements higher in the hierarchy. On the other hand, proving it true wouldn’t immediately imply the truth ...