Math problem solved after 40 years.

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Math problem solved after 40 years.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-israel-math-riddle,0,1509032,print.story

The AP (3/21, Heller) reports that a "mathematical puzzle that baffled  
the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly  
four decades has been cracked" by Avraham Trahtman, a 63-year-old  
Russian who immigrated to Israel in 1992. Trahtman, "a mathematician  
who also toiled as a laborer after moving to Israel,...succeeded where  
dozens failed, solving the elusive 'Road Coloring Problem.'" The  
problem "was first posed in 1970 by Benjamin Weiss, an Israeli- 
American mathematician, and a colleague, Roy Adler, who worked at IBM  
at the time." The AP points out that the "conjecture essentially  
assumed it's possible to create a 'universal map' that can direct  
people to arrive at a certain destination, at the same time,  
regardless of starting point." According to math and science experts,  
"the proposition could have real-life applications in mapping and  
computer science."

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