Graduate Student Solves Decades-Old Conway Knot Problem

[CloudWatcher]

https://www.quantamagazine.org/graduate-student-solves-decades-old-conway-knot-problem-20200519

... The question asked whether the Conway knot — a snarl discovered more than half a century ago by the legendary mathematician John Horton Conway — is a slice of a higher-dimensional knot. “Sliceness” is one of the first natural questions knot theorists ask about knots in higher-dimensional spaces, and mathematicians had been able to answer it for all of the thousands of knots with 12 or fewer crossings — except one. The Conway knot, which has 11 crossings, had thumbed its nose at mathematicians for decades.

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.“

<<snip>>



Sadly the article also mentions that John Conway had died from the virus. He was even more widely known for inventing the "Life" game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life

[bmbmd]

1. Not going to argue

this is really, really cool-in a nerdy sort of way.

[CloudWatcher]

4. A cool interview with her ...

I like the way she thinks

https://gradschool.utexas.edu/news/studying-knots-and-four-dimensional-spaces

Research is pretty hard, and 364 days a year you won’t solve anything. I’m not actually particularly disciplined, so to make up for this I work on problems where I find the things I am thinking about on the 364 unsuccessful days inherently interesting. Then it is fun and natural to work hard every day, and if you work hard and carefully for long enough I think you will probably solve your problem.
...
I worried a lot about whether I would like math research and, even more so, whether I was smart enough to do math. This undermined both my ability to really engage with the community and my work. Slowly, eventually, I learned that I love math research (at least, I love three and four-manifold topology), and there is no such thing as smart-enough-to-do-math.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

2. My kind of woman!

Great job!

[marble falls]

3. Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not ...

be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

[CloudWatcher]

5. Oops dup post

Also on GD this morning. Missed it!

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213961414

[Lucky Luciano]

6. I'm a mathematician, so I tip my hat. I used to be a topologist before I sold out to a better wage.

My degree was actually in algebraic geometry though.

Low dimensional topology (meaning dimension 3 or 4) are particularly difficult, so much respect.

[cstanleytech]

7. Anything beyond 2 plus 2 equals 4 makes my head ache as I suck hard enough at math as it is.

[Javaman]

8. I thought conways daughter figured out how to solve the knot...

[CatLady78]

9. Very cool

A remarkable young woman.
I tried to make sense of that problem but stopped when I felt a throbbing about the temples . Maybe another time....bookmarking it.
Very sad about Conway.