Two teens from New Orleans do the impossible by solving a math problem believed to be unsolvable for 2,000 years.
Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson are the two students from New Orleans, Louisiana have successfully solved an “impossible” math problem. The genius girl duo where the only high schoolers in attendance to present their research at a recent conference.
Johnson and Jackson are students of St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans. They presented their work titled “An Impossible Proof of Pythagoras” at the American Mathematical Society’s Southeastern Section’s semi-annual meeting at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. They were said to be the only high schoolers at the event which was attended by math researchers from countless, prestigious institutions and universities across the country. They showcased their research, discussing how they had proven Pythagoras’s theorem by using trigonometry without circular logic. It was a discovery that countless mathematicians around the world believed to be impossible for over 2,000 years.
“It’s really an unparalleled feeling, honestly, because there’s just nothing like being able to do something that people don’t think young people can do,” Johnson told WWLTV. “A lot of times you see this stuff, you don’t see kids like us doing it.”
They also credit the encouragement of their teachers, who instilled in them their school’s slogan ‘No Excellence Without Hard Labor.’
Johnson and Jackson have their sights set on attending college and obtaining their respective STEM degrees in environmental engineering and biochemistry.
