A couple of University of Pennsylvania mathematicians found solutions to some 140-year-old 7-dimensional equation. I guess solutions were not known to exist for
more than a century despite it being very popular in modeling the behavior
of gases.
The solution was found by Philip Gressman and Robert Strain and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Strain says:
“We consider it remarkable that this equation, derived by Boltzmann and
Maxwell in 1867 and 1872, grants a fundamental example where a range of
geometric fractional derivatives occur in a physical model of the
natural world… The mathematical techniques needed to
study such phenomena were only developed in the modern era.”
Yay for math!
