{
  "id": 16779196,
  "title": "How a 16th century pirate accidentally spawned a centuries-old math problem",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/27/how-a-16th-century-pirate-accidentally-spawned-a-centuries-old-math",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-10-27T18:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Scientific American",
    "slug": "scientific-american",
    "url": "https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-a-16th-century-pirate-accidentally-spawned-a-centuries-old-math-problem/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "A question posed by Sir Walter Raleigh about cannonballs inadvertently led to a puzzle that mathematicians have been trying to solve for centuries",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}