So There Are More Than One Way To Write The Number 3, Here's How

Last year, mathematicians cracked an elusive problem relating to the number 42. And then, they went on to find a solution to a math problem with the number 3.

Two mathematicians, Andrew Sutherland and Andrew Booker from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Bristol University, respectively, have found a solution to the sum of three cubes.

This problem raises a question if there’s any whole number or integer that can be presented as the sum of three cubed numbers. Previously, mathematicians found two solutions for the number 3, the first of which is 1³ + 1³ + 1³  and the other is 4³ + 4³ + (-5)³.

However, mathematicians have spent decades searching for the next solution. And the two mathematicians we mentioned above have got it, as the following:

569936821221962380720³ + (-569936821113563493509) ³ + (-472715493453327032) ³ = 3

In September last year, the pair also came up with a way to solve the same problem for the number 42, which was the last unsolved number that’s under 100.

In order to find the solutions, Sutherland and Booker worked with Charity Engine, a software company, to run an algorithm on half a million idle computers of volunteers. The processing time for the number 3 was equivalent to one computer processor that rún fro 4 million hours, which is over 456 years.

Booker says that if a number can be presented as three cubed numbers, there can be many solutions. That means the number of possible solutions for the number 3 should be infinite and they have just found the third solution only.

It was hard and took so long to find the third solution to the problem of three and there’s a reason for that. Booker says:

In fact, the growth rate is really small for three, just 114, the smallest growth rate belongs to the smallest unsolved number. That means numbers that have small growth rates have fewer solutions and fewer digits.

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