Math Are Good

I think I warped a few brain cells trying to figure this one out. What amazes me more, though, is that math can be used to make a sphere. Heck, I can’t get math to make a balance in my bank account.

From Wired News:

Team Cracks Century-Old Math Puzzle

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) — An international team of mathematicians says it has cracked a 120-year-old puzzle that researchers say is so complicated that its handwritten solution would cover the island of Manhattan.

The 18-member group of mathematicians and computer scientists was convened by the American Institute of Mathematics in Palo Alto to map a theoretical object known as the “Lie group E8.”

Lie (pronounced Lee) groups were invented by 19th-century Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie in his study of symmetrical objects, especially spheres, and differential calculus.

The E8 group, which dates to 1887, is the most complicated Lie group, with 248 dimensions, and was long considered impossible to solve.

full article

This is the image:

In a computer generated illustration supplied by the American Institute of Mathematics, the E8 root system related to the Lie group E8, which is 248 dimensions, is seen. A math problem so complicated that its solution would cover the island of Manhattan if written out was cracked by researchers after going unsolved for more than a century. The 18-member team of mathematicians and computer scientists convened by the American Institute of Mathematics in Palo Alto, Calif., took four years to map a 248-dimensional object known as the “Lie group E8.” (AP Graphic/John Stembridge, University of Michigan)

Those of us who write (or try to write) science fiction might find this useful. I doubt I ever will, except perhaps as a side mention to make the reader think I know stuff.