The point is that it's a solution to a difficult mathematical problem, and a particularly interesting one since it has a different result with one less dimensio

The point is that it's a solution to a difficult mathematical problem, and a particularly interesting one since it has a different result with one less dimension and naively there's no reason to expect any different in 3D. A lot of math is like this, in the sense that you can't set it up in the real world and prove it's true with physical objects, but it's still interesting and often practically useful. I guess the difference here is that it's close to being physically possible, causing frustration here among HN readers? But it's odd to see so much disparagement of the result. This is a famous result in topology, with good reason.