Who doesn’t love a good puzzle? Well, probably everyone who tries this one, dubbed by the scientists behind it as the “world’s most astonishingly difficult” maze.
The maze, an enchanting pattern of curves and points, is inspired by a knight moving across a chessboard – and by a meteorite.
Knights move in an L-shape and can visit each square on the chessboard only once before returning to their starting point. This occurs in a pattern known as the Hamiltonian cycle.
Theoretical physicists, led by the University of Bristol, used a Hamilton cycle to map atoms in strange matter known as quasicrystals.
Most crystals, like salt or diamonds, are arranged in perfect patterns that repeat in three dimensions. Quasicrystals, however, are mathematically described as living in six dimensions. Mind-blowing.
Actually, they are everywhere and it is very difficult to map them.
They are also very rare. They have only been found in nature in a space rock: the Khatyrka meteorite, which was found in Russia in 2011.
However, they were created in laboratories, and also by accident after the 1945 Trinity Test, the atomic bomb explosion as part of the Manhattan Project depicted in the film Oppenheimer.
To find some order in these peculiar characters, Dr. Felix Flicker and his colleagues used Hamiltonian cycles to map each atom on the surface of certain quasicrystals just once, like a knight on a chessboard. They found that they formed remarkably intricate and complex mazes – known in the industry as fractals.
“We show that certain quasicrystals represent a special case in which the problem is unexpectedly simple,” Dr. Felix said. “In this setting, we therefore make a number of seemingly impossible problems tractable. This could include practical purposes spanning several areas of science.”
Such a problem could also be climate change.
Many hope that a solution to the crisis could be to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere through adsorption. Currently, this is often done using crystals to which the CO2 molecules stick, and the team hopes that quasicrystals and their complex structures could be even more efficient at capturing greenhouse gases.
Co-author Shobhna Singh, a PhD researcher at Cardiff University, said: ‘Our work also shows that quasicrystals could be better than crystals for some adsorption applications. For example, flexible molecules will find more ways to land on the irregularly arranged atoms of quasicrystals.
‘Quasicrystals are also brittle, meaning they easily break down into small grains. This maximizes their adsorption surface.’
That’s great news, but let’s face it: right now everyone just wants to know how to crack that dark maze.
First of all, as with most annoying puzzles, there is more than one solution. As you will see below, there is only one route out of the maze marked in red. If you have found this or another one, congratulations – you should now go apply for Mensa.
If you haven’t done this, don’t feel bad, it’s very difficult. Although, and this is a bit of a setback, it is the ‘easiest’ of the two mazes the team has created.
To complete the more difficult task below, you’ll need to zoom in. And no, we didn’t finish that one.
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