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Half a century of math mystery finally meets Baek Jin-eon

After almost sixty years of stumping progress in geometry, a Korean mathematician has cracked a problem that generations of scholars left unsolved.

Jason Weisberger
Jan 07, 2026
∙ Paid

South Korea

After almost sixty years of stumping progress in geometry, a Korean mathematician has cracked a problem that generations of scholars left unsolved.

The so-called moving sofa problem asks how large a rigid shape can be while still being able to pass around a right-angled corner in an L-shaped corridor of a constant width of 1 meter.

First posed …

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