Imagine if we lived on a cube-shaped Earth. How would you find the shortest path around the world?

Long considered solved, David Hilbert’s question about seventh-degree polynomials is leading researchers to a new web of mathematical connections.

"A little high school geometry can help you understand the basic math behind movie recommendation engines."

I remember reading these papers when they were first widely available. I am no great mathematician (and certainly not adequate to adjudicate the controversy in Corollary 3.12), but I remember having a sense of how the proof might work. _...Read More_