Glossary · Term

moving sofa problem

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Definition

Plain language

A famous unsolved geometry puzzle about the biggest piece of furniture you can drag around a right-angle hallway.

As stated in the literature

Moser's 1966 problem on the largest area of a connected region that can be moved around a right-angle corner in a hallway of unit width.

Why it matters: It's a famously simple-sounding open problem that remains unsolved, making it a target for AI-assisted mathematical search.

For example, the question is roughly: what's the largest sofa shape you could slide around an L-shaped corridor whose halls are one meter wide?

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