Posted on 05/22/2020 2:44:42 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
It took Lisa Piccirillo less than a week to answer a long-standing question about a strange knot discovered over half a century ago by the legendary John Conway.
In the summer of 2018, at a conference on low-dimensional topology and geometry, Lisa Piccirillo heard about a nice little math problem. It seemed like a good testing ground for some techniques she had been developing as a graduate student at the University of Texas, Austin.
“I didn’t allow myself to work on it during the day,” she said, “because I didn’t consider it to be real math. I thought it was, like, my homework.”
Before the week was out, Piccirillo had an answer: The Conway knot is not “slice.” A few days later, she met with Cameron Gordon, a professor at UT Austin, and casually mentioned her solution.
“I said, ‘What?? That’s going to the Annals right now!’” Gordon said, referring to Annals of Mathematics, one of the discipline’s top journals.
“He started yelling, ‘Why aren’t you more excited?’” said Piccirillo, now a postdoctoral fellow at Brandeis University. “He sort of freaked out.”
“I don’t think she’d recognized what an old and famous problem this was,” Gordon said.
Piccirillo’s proof appeared in Annals of Mathematics in February. The paper, combined with her other work, has secured her a tenure-track job offer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that will begin on July 1, only 14 months after she finished her doctorate.
(Excerpt) Read more at quantamagazine.org ...
Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but Lisa looks kind of butch. One of the best mathematicians of all time, a chick named Emmy Noether was called Herr Noether by her students.
Bigger rack, you say?
90.
I thought this would be about why Kellyanne Conway tied the knot with Roger Conway.
I guess some problems will never be understood.
“Hmmmm, 90mph?”
I have heard that response many times even from a few real propeller heads.
NO, not correct.
Tooo bad Tim Conway is dead. They could have asked him.
Infinity. The answer is always infinity. Unless it’s a cat thing. ;)
+++++
Not if it’s sliced. You simply move the car through the slice into the 4th dimension and leisurely drive home.
It’s a knotty problem figuring out just how to do that but you can solve it if you’ve studied trigonometry and geometry. A good problem to work out when you are in bed at night and can’t fall asleep.
I don’t think Lisa Piccirillo would be interested in meeting me for drinks..........
Based on her picture I know one thing for sure, the Girl will never own one of those “I wish these were Brains” T Shirts.
Not quite there. You’re just adding two different MPH figures and getting an average of the two. But, if you drove one mile at 30 MPH, it would take you 2 minutes, or 120 seconds. If you drove that same mile back at 90 MPH, it would take you 40 seconds. For a grand total of 160 seconds to drive 2 miles. That is an average of 80 seconds per mile or 45 MPH.
It’s easier to realize at a distance of 60 miles each direction. To average 60 MPH, you would have to make the round trip in two hours (120 miles/2 hours = 60MPH). But the first 60 miles took you two hours to drive at 30 MPH. That leaves no time for the return trip. There is no solution.
At any time during the 50 years after he created his knot.
“Either way, it is nice to see genius still exists, that the woman solved an age old proof. It is always fun to read about genius. It is so underappreciated in a world where most people only care about how far you can throw a football or which actress has a bigger rack.”
It is enjoyable!
The young pitcher they found at a pitching booth was also fun.
But this story is even more fun, most likely this young lady will have many productive years.
I wish the pitcher well, but the numbers are against him.
https://www.mlb.com/cut4/a-s-sign-pitcher-who-dazzled-at-in-stadium-radar-booth
I'd say 90 mph for the return trip, but it has been a long time since I took math. And do you have to allow for how many red lights you hit on the return trip?
You'd probably have to go faster than 90 mph on the return trip to make up for the time you lose while the cop is writing you a speeding ticket.
“There is no answer because on the way home you are arrested for breaking quarantine.”
Kind of tricky because most of the cops are not getting out of the car.
Unless you are going near the speed of light or something.
Its the law.
Clearly it depends on how long you stayed at my house.
If the odometer stays on the same mileage as when you arrived at the friend's house, then one stayed at the same 30 mph on the tripminder.
If the odometer runs backwards to the original starting point for recording, then you never left and your wife will not know you went to that "off limits" friend's house.
"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."
No Time Left For You
The Guess Who
1969
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPX48NpSRvo
” and use it to have multiple people highlight their lack of math ability.”
No, no, that was not my intent.
After having this puzzle inflicted on me, not trusting my own ciphering, spending too much time to triple check...
I was simply lashing out at anyone I could find.
In order to achieve an average velocity of 60 mph, starting with a 30 mph trip to the friends house 30 miles away, I would drive at 90 mph back to my house. Then I would keep going 30 miles past my house, turn around and return to my house at 90 mph. In total I have travelled for 2 hrs and covered a distance of 120 miles. My average velocity is 60 mph.
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