Periodic table of shapes

{{Short description|Project to classify Fano varieties}}

The periodic table of mathematical shapes is the popular name given to a project to classify Fano varieties.{{cite web|title=Mathematicians propose periodic table of shapes - Cosmos Magazine|date=16 February 2011|author=Becky Crew|url=http://cosmosmagazine.com/news/mathematicians-create-periodic-table-shapes/|website=cosmosmagazine.com|accessdate=19 September 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131012213546/http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/mathematicians-create-periodic-table-shapes/|archive-date=12 October 2013|url-status=dead}} The project was devised by Professor Alessio Corti, from the Department of Mathematics at Imperial College London. It aims to categorise all three-, four- and five-dimensional shapes into a single table, analogous to the periodic table of chemical elements. It is meant to hold the equations that describe each shape and, through this, mathematicians and other scientists expect to develop a better understanding of the shapes’ geometric properties and relations.{{cite web |author = PhysOrg.com | title = Periodic table of shapes to give a new dimension to maths (w/ Video) |date = 16 Feb 2011 |url = https://phys.org/news/2011-02-periodic-table-dimension-maths-video.html}}

The project has already won the Philip Leverhulme Prize—worth £70,000—from the Leverhulme Trust, and in 2019 a European Research Council grant.{{cite web|title=Periodic table of shapes could uncover the structure of the universe - ERC|date=19 Dec 2019|author=European Research Council|url=https://erc.europa.eu/projects-figures/stories/periodic-table-shapes-could-uncover-structure-universe|accessdate=18 Nov 2022}}

While it is estimated that 500 million shapes can be defined algebraically in four dimensions, they may be decomposable (in the sense of the minimal model program) into as few as a few thousand "building blocks".