04-03-2025
- Science
- South China Morning Post
Chinese maths star Wang Hong solves ‘infamous' geometry problem
Chinese mathematician Wang Hong has solved an 'infamous' geometry problem called the Kakeya conjecture within three dimensions.
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It is considered a breakthrough that could have implications for imaging, data processing, cryptography and wireless communication.
Wang – who was born in the southern Chinese city of Guilin and graduated from Peking University – is an associate professor at the New York University Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.
Wang and her collaborator Joshua Zahl, from The University of British Columbia, presented their milestone proof in a preprint paper that has not undergone peer review on the open-access repository arXiv on February 24.
Australian-American mathematician Terence Tao, the 'Mozart of maths' and winner of the 2006 Fields Medal – one of the highest awards in mathematics – took note of the paper online soon after.
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'I am happy to announce that the Kakeya set conjecture, one of the most sought-after open problems in geometric measure theory, has now been proven (in three dimensions) by Hong Wang and Joshua Zahl,' Tao wrote in a post on the social networking site Mastodon.
