Video Description

A simple question about a spinning needle has haunted mathematicians for more than a century. It led to the Kakeya conjecture, a cornerstone of modern analysis connecting geometry, fractals, and the behavior of waves. Now, mathematicians Hong Wang and Joshua Zahl have cracked the 3D case — a once-in-a-generation breakthrough that could reshape how we understand the Fourier transform. (Also featuring Terence Tao and Jonathan Hickman.) Read more at Quanta Magazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/once-in-a-century-proof-settles-maths-kakeya-conjecture-20250314/ Please note two corrections to this video: - At 4:00 and 4:12, some of the Hausdorff dimension boxes appear rectangular. They should all be squares. - At 4:43, the proof described should be attributed to Antonio Cordoba rather than Roy Davies, who used a slightly different argument. --------- Quanta Magazine is an editorially independent publication supported by the Simons Foundation. We focus on developments in mathematics, theoretical physics, theoretical computer science and the basic life sciences. READ free math and science articles on the Quanta website: www.quantamagazine.org LEARN about the Simons Foundation: www.simonsfoundation.org FOLLOW our social channels: - Instagram: quantamag - Bluesky: @quantamagazine.bsky.social‬ - Facebook: quantanews - X: quantamagazine