[HN Gopher] Optimality of Gerver's Sofa
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       Optimality of Gerver's Sofa
        
       Author : petters
       Score  : 37 points
       Date   : 2024-12-02 21:05 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arxiv.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arxiv.org)
        
       | doormatt wrote:
       | For those that don't understand -
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_sofa_problem
        
         | righthand wrote:
         | And perhaps expanded upon into 3D space in Dirk Gently's
         | Holistic Detective Agency (in which the sofa becomes impossibly
         | stuck, at least in human understood physics) -
         | 
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Gently%27s_Holistic_Det...
        
           | m463 wrote:
           | _In a similar incident that occurred while Douglas Adams
           | attended St John 's College, Cambridge, furniture was placed
           | in the rooms overlooking the river in Third Court while the
           | staircases were being refurbished. When the staircases were
           | completed, it was discovered that the sofas could no longer
           | be removed from the rooms, and the sofas remained in those
           | rooms for several decades._
           | 
           | lol
        
       | n4r9 wrote:
       | Looks like the author researched this during their PhD which
       | ended this year, obtained a postdoc and then finished it off.
       | Good on them!
       | 
       | I wonder how the result varies if one of the corridors (the
       | second one for simplicity) is given a variable width. And if the
       | angle of turn is variable.
        
       | parhamn wrote:
       | Numberphile had a great video on this a few years ago:
       | https://youtu.be/rXfKWIZQIo4
        
       | yoshicoder wrote:
       | I am not well versed with mathematics publishing, but has this
       | proof been already been peer reviewed by other mathematicians, or
       | is it still awaiting confirmation/proof replication?
        
         | emptygame wrote:
         | This is just a preprint, so no peer review or anything yet.
         | Putting out a preprint on the Arxiv like this is generally the
         | first step of the author sharing their work for other
         | mathematicians to take a look at, before it gets submitted for
         | peer review and publication
        
       | jonahx wrote:
       | Wow. This solves a problem that's been open for at least 58
       | years.
        
       | bediger4000 wrote:
       | Dies Ikea offer one of these?
        
       | briandilley wrote:
       | What is the practical application of this?
        
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       (page generated 2024-12-02 23:00 UTC)