Read the latest positive news, breakthroughs, and inspiring stories about problem solving, curated daily by BrightWire.
A 16th-century pirate's simple question about counting cannonballs sparked a mathematical puzzle that stumped brilliant minds for 400 years. The answer finally came in 2017, proving that grocers have been stacking oranges the right way all along.
A Sanskrit poet solved India's mail crisis in 1972 with a six-digit code that still works from Antarctica to the world's highest post office. Every number tells a story about where your letter needs to go.
The Milwaukee Brewers are making things right for fans who felt shortchanged by their decade-old ticket promotion. After listening to customer feedback, the team found a creative solution that honors both the original promise and the fans' loyalty.
When passport systems crashed at New Zealand's busiest airports Monday morning, Customs teams jumped into action and had travelers moving again by afternoon. Quick thinking and extra staff turned a potential travel nightmare into a minor hiccup.
A team of physicists just solved one of knitting's biggest problems using math and a little help from their moms. Their new "robust knit" stitch stops mistakes from spreading across the entire fabric.
A team of six mathematicians used artificial intelligence to crack a decades-old mystery about mathematical symmetries that stumped experts since the 1980s. The breakthrough solved the final piece of a puzzle involving rare "sporadic" groups that exist for no known reason.
When Dr. Jesse McGuire's trumpet malfunctioned during the national anthem at a packed World Series reunion, the 68-year-old didn't miss a beat. He grabbed the microphone and sang the rest of the song to a standing ovation.
When his pregnant wife needed safer roads to reach doctor appointments, Gaurav Sen built an app in one day that detects potholes and identifies who's responsible for fixing them. The 4 MB app could help prevent thousands of pothole-related deaths across India.
A math lecturer spent years designing special 60-sided dice that ensure no two players ever roll the same number, eliminating the frustration of having to reroll. Auburn University just honored his breakthrough with a massive wooden sculpture.
Artificial intelligence has reportedly cracked one of mathematics' toughest puzzles, proving that equations used to predict fluid flow have fundamental flaws. The achievement marks a turning point in how humans and machines work together to solve problems once thought impossible.
After 15 years of searching through more combinations than atoms in the universe, mathematicians finally cracked the "go first dice" problem with a set of five perfectly fair 60-sided dice. Giant wooden replicas now stand in Auburn University to celebrate the achievement.
A mathematician proved the smallest possible origami doughnut requires just 8 vertices and 24 folds, ending a quest that began in 1960. ChatGPT almost derailed his breakthrough with a hallucination about thousands of solutions.