The spatial intuition behind a three-point turn offers an on-ramp to a century-old geometry problem. The post How Simple Math Moves the Needle first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Imagine you’re rolling down the street in a driverless car when you see a problem ahead. An Amazon delivery driver got their van halfway past a double-parked UPS truck before realizing they couldn’t make it through. Now they’re stuck. And so are you. The street is too narrow to pull off a U-ey, so your AI-enhanced automobile initiates a three-point turn. First, the car takes a curving path toward…