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Most of us have struggled with the mathematical puzzle known as the "moving sofa problem." It poses a deceptively simple question: What is the largest sofa that can pivot around an L-shaped hallway ...

In a scene from the classic sitcom, "Friends," the characters Ross, Rachel and Chandler struggle to heft a new couch up the stairs of their apartment building. As they try to get the sofa around the ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

A new proof reveals the answer to the decades-old “moving sofa” problem. It highlights how even the simplest optimization problems can have counterintuitive answers. If you’ve ever moved into a new ...

For those who have wrestled a bulky couch around a tight corner and lamented, “Will this ever get through?” mathematicians have heard your pleas. Geometry’s “moving sofa problem” asks for the largest ...

Twenty-five years too late to help Ross get his new couch into his apartment in "Friends," a mathematician has finally solved the pesky "sofa problem." The math problem delineates the largest-size ...

For decades, mathematicians tried to come up with the optimal sofa shape to move around a corner. Post-doctoral student Jineon Baek posted a 100-page proof that claims to solve the problem. In a scene ...