Communications of the ACM
CMU Scientists Solve 90-Year-Old Geometry Problem
In geometry, Keller's conjecture is the conjecture that in any tiling of Euclidean space by identical hypercubes, there are two cubes that meet face to face.
Credit: David Eppstein
Carnegie Mellon University computer scientists and mathematicians have resolved the last, stubborn piece of Keller's conjecture, a geometry problem that scientists have puzzled over for 90 years.
By structuring the puzzle as what computer scientists call a satisfiability problem, the researchers put the problem to rest with four months of frenzied computer programming and just 30 minutes of computation using a cluster of computers.
"I was really happy when we solved it, but then I was a little sad that the problem was gone," said John Mackey, a teaching professor in the Computer Science Department (CSD) and Department of Mathematical Sciences who had pursued Keller's conjecture since he was a grad student 30 years ago. "But then I felt happy again. There's just this feeling of satisfaction."
From Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science
View Full Article
No entries found