The word-painting below may not look that complicated to people unfamiliar with greyback theory , but it ’s been confuse mathematicians for decades . Now , a graduate pupil - turned - MIT professorholdsthe honor of being the first person tosolvethe Conway Knot problem in 50 geezerhood , theBoston Globereports .
While studying at the University of Texas in 2018 , Lisa Piccirillo came up with a proof of the Conway Knot in less than calendar week . Her work was published in the journalAnnals of Mathematicsearlier this year , and the math humankind like a shot took bill . On July 1 , the 29 - year - old pop out a new Book of Job as an adjunct professor at MIT .
The Conway Knot is make after John Horton Conway , the English mathematician who discovered the mathematical knot half a century ago . Amathematical knotis a tortuous shape that appear to be made from a undivided , unbroken argumentation . Knot theory is a subcategory of web topology ( the written report of aim ' changeless geometrical place ) , and it examines how these shapes are possible . This theory of mathematics has real world applications in see matter like the deoxyribonucleic acid twofold - coil and the shape of the cosmos .
The Conway Knot is one of the more infamous job in knot possibility , with a line that overlaps in 11 different piazza . In knot theory , some knots are " slices , " which mean they could be made by slicing a four - dimensional knobbed welkin , and it was unclear whether the Conway Knot belonged in this class . Piccirillo devised her own mi , now squall Piccirillo ’s grayback , made out of the same four - dimensional shape , or " hint , " associated with the Conway Knot . Because her knot was n’t a slice , she determined that the Conway Knot could n’t be one either .
Piccirillo graduate from the University of Texas in 2019 and took a postdoctoral position at Brandeis . While most postdoctoral jobs last three or four years , Piccirillo had only been out of grad school for 14 calendar month when she was charter by MIT .
[ h / tBoston Globe ]
