Mathematicians discover the worst way to hang a painting

You have two nails in the wall and a painting with a string on its back, which can easily be rested on the nails to hang the painting. If you remove one nail, the painting will still hang on the other. But mathematicians said, “We can make it worse.” In 1997 A. Spivak posed the following riddle: Is there a way to hang the painting so that removing either nail will cause the painting to fall? Since then, mathematicians have expanded this concept into an intriguing family of picture-hanging problems.Retired computer scientist Tom Verhoeff first explored such problems in a workshop for a grade school math camp, where the campers investigated with actual string and carabiners but also translated the problem into symbols.Amanda MontañezOn supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this art