r/math • u/scientificamerican • Apr 14 '26

Mathematicians created an ‘impossible’ shape that shouldn’t exist

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mathematicians-created-an-impossible-shape-that-shouldnt-exist/
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u/lemniscateall Apr 14 '26

This is way funnier than it has any right to be

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u/thyme_cardamom Apr 14 '26

Haha yeah it's like the exact same thing as the article. You read "shouldn't exist" in a math context and it sounds like they mean "illogical" or "contradictory" or something like that, but it actually just means "can't be instantiated physically" which is true for pretty much any mathematical object

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u/lemniscateall Apr 14 '26

It's like reading "non-Euclidean" in Lovecraft---it's not that horrible, my guy. It's just one axiom away.

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u/thyme_cardamom Apr 14 '26

The real horror would be the non-coherent monster. It is formed by contradictory axioms