Mathematician who solved century-old math problem is moving to China
What's the story
Joshua Zahl, the American mathematician who recently cracked the century-old Kakeya conjecture, is leaving Canada's University of British Columbia (UBC). His solution to the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture made headlines around the world and earned him job offers from universities globally. Now, he has accepted a full-time position at Nankai University's Chern Institute of Mathematics (CIM) in China.
New role
Zahl to be chair professor at China's Chern Institute
Zahl will be taking on the role of a chair professor at CIM, as per the university's website. He has already met Chen Yulu, president of Nankai University, and praised CIM's rigorous academic environment and outstanding research team. This makes him the third world-renowned mathematician to accept a full-time position at CIM in recent months. The institute was founded by Chinese mathematician SS Chern in 1985.
Teamwork
Solution to the Kakeya conjecture
Zahl worked with Wang Hong from New York University to solve the Kakeya conjecture, publishing their solution in a 127-page preprint paper on arXiv in February. The duo's work has been recognized by mathematicians worldwide, including Zahl's doctoral advisor Terence Tao from UCLA. Tao confirmed on his blog that Zahl and Wang had made "some spectacular progress in geometric measure theory" and solved "the three-dimensional case of the infamous Kakeya set conjecture."
Research series
Kakeya conjecture solution published in 3 papers
Zahl and Wang's work on the Kakeya conjecture spans over several years. They have published their solution in a trilogy of papers, with the first one titled "Sticky Kakeya Sets and the Sticky Kakeya Conjecture," released in 2022. In this paper, they disproved the existence of sticky counterexamples to bolster the validity of the Kakeya conjecture. The second paper was published online in 2024 and later appeared in Inventiones Mathematicae, a leading mathematics journal.