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141 points baruchel | 1 comments | 02 Sep 25 11:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.218s | source

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argomo ◴[04 Sep 25 04:42 UTC] No.45123645[source]▶

Maybe the article is dumbing it down too much, but the conclusion seems unsurprising. Why shouldn't a single unknotting do double-duty in some cases?

It feels akin to the classic trick of joining a tetrahedron to a square pyramid: 4 faces + 5 faces == 5 faces total!

nyeah ◴[04 Sep 25 12:25 UTC] No.45126466[source]▶

They only had research mathematicians working on the problem. Until now they didn't have HN commenters. So work went very slowly.

1. tpoacher ◴[04 Sep 25 15:04 UTC] No.45128112[source]▶

bwahahah, loved this comment.

New knot theory discovery overturns long-held mathematical assumption