Mathematicians have long wondered how “shapes of constant width” behave in higher dimensions. A surprisingly simple construction has given them an answer. In 1986, after the space shuttle Challenger ...

In 1986 Belgian mathematician Jean Bourgain posed a seemingly simple question that continued to puzzle researchers for decades. No matter how you deform a convex shape—consider shaping a ball of clay ...

Mathematicians are “reinventing the wheel” by giving it a new shape. Their newly imagined wheel looks like a many-dimensional guitar pick, and it could theoretically roll in ways beyond our ...

The research addressing two-dimensional (2D) irregular shape packing has largely focused on the strip packing variant of the problem. However, it can be argued that this is a simplification. The ...

Dan Roam believes we are all capable of using visual thinking to solve complex problems. His first book, The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas With Pictures, helped ignite a ...

Bill Gates, billionaire and the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), shared his approach to solving problems, ...