The periodic table of mathematical shapes is popular name given to a project to classify Fano varieties.[1] The project was thought up by Professor Alessio Corti, from the Department of Mathematics at Imperial College London. It aims to categorise all three-, four- and five-dimensional shapes into a single table, analogous to the periodic table of chemical elements. It is meant to hold the equations that describe each shape and, through this, mathematicians and other scientists expect to develop a better understanding of the shapes’ geometric properties and relations.[2]
The project has already won the Philip Leverhulme Prize—worth £70,000—from the Leverhulme Trust, and in 2019 a European Research Council grant.[3] While it is estimated that 500 million shapes can be defined algebraically in four dimensions, they may be decomposable (in the sense of the minimal model program) into as few as a few thousand "building blocks".
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Becky Crew (16 February 2011). "Mathematicians propose periodic table of shapes - Cosmos Magazine". cosmosmagazine.com. Archived from the original on 12 October 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2014.
- ^ Parascientifica (19 Feb 2011). "The Periodic table of shapes".
- ^ European Research Council (19 Dec 2019). "Periodic table of shapes could uncover the structure of the universe - ERC". Retrieved 18 Nov 2022.
External links
edit- Fano Varieties and Extremal Laurent Polynomials A collaborative research blog for the project.
- 'Periodic Table of Shapes' to Give a New Dimension to Math
- Atoms ripple in the periodic table of shapes
- Nature's building blocks brought to life
- Databases of quantum periods for Fano manifolds by Tom Coates and Alexander M. Kasprzyk
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