In a breakthrough announced in October 2025, mathematicians Jakob Steininger and Sergey Yurkevich discovered the first shape proven to lack the "Rupert property" - meaning it cannot have a straight tunnel bored through it large enough for an identical copy to pass through[^1].

Named the "Noperthedron," this 90-vertex, 152-face shape disproved a centuries-old conjecture that all convex polyhedra would have this pass-through property, first demonstrated by Prince Rupert with a cube in the 1600s[^1].

The proof combined theoretical advances with massive computer calculations, examining approximately 18 million possible orientations. "It's a miracle that it works," said Steininger, who developed the proof with Yurkevich while both worked in Austria[^1].

This resolved a geometry problem dating back to Prince Rupert's royal bet that one cube couldn't pass through another. While Rupert won that bet, and mathematicians later proved many complex shapes could have pass-through tunnels, the Noperthedron finally provided the first counterexample[^1].

[^1]: First Shape Found That Can't Pass Through Itself | Quanta Magazine

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[–] [S] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm not sure about it, but I think that a sphere is such a shape by default and the shape found is an aproximate sphere. So I don't really understand where are the problem.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    I knew this topic sounded familiar. The Tom Murphy from this article is @tom7@mastodon.social and he made a video about it last month:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH4MviUE0_s

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    @Zerush That's pretty cool. I'm wondering how it will be made useful. I'm sure it will.

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  • 9 comments in c/science@mander.xyz view that post
    [–] 25 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    I thought this was an abstract Firefox logo at first

    Edit: I read the article and it’s a really interesting concept!

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Good ole rhombicosidodecahedrons!

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I tried to understand this shape but I was not successful so I will upload it for further analysis when I next regenerate after rejoining the collective.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I always liked how the Borg's algorithm to assess nonsense shapes is to throw more Borgs at it instead of being like "Further data is required" and then return to the area where the data was collected. If they couldn't collect it, then run a diagnostic on the Borg that presented it. It's almost like the Borg collective never assimilated any species that had hackers or social engineers in their populations.

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  • 8 comments in c/longreads@sh.itjust.works view that post
    [–] 13 points 1 year ago*

    Has geometry gone too far?

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Math idiot here. What’s the significance of a shape not being able to pass through itself?

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I am not a math expert; I never even took calculus. From reading the article, originally the question three centuries ago was whether or not a cube could be rotated in such a way that another identically sized cube could pass through it (like if a tunnel was cut in it). The answer turned out to be yes, although it’s very close. Then as mathematicians started investigating other shapes the answer kept being yes. Eventually the question became, “are there any shapes that can’t pass through themselves?” It’s hard to prove because there are so many angles that have to be checked. Recently mathematicians were able to prove that if you can rule out one angle, you can also then rule out a certain (varying) percentage of adjacent angles. Using that makes it easier to rule out more rotations and they’ve now found the first shape where they can definitively say it can’t pass through itself.

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  • 3 comments in c/science@mander.xyz view that post
    [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    I read through this and something I couldn't quite understand is - is a sphere able to "pass through" itself. If not then that seems like a baseline proof that such objects exist, then the question is "are there any convex polygons".

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  • 2 comments in c/hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se view that post
    [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    One of my favorite YouTube channels suckerpinch (also quoted in this article as Tom Murphy) made a video about noperts:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH4MviUE0_s

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Finally, after two thousand years of advancement in mathematical topology! Imagine the possibilities for the future development of society!

    one fan of the work has already 3D-printed a copy to use as a pencil holder. 

    hmmm…

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  • 1 comment in c/inmymind@lemmy.dbzer0.com view that post
    [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    This is what I come here for.

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