This is an updated version of a story first published on May 5, 2024.

For many high school students returning to class, it may seem like geometry and trigonometry were created by the Greeks as a form of torture.

So imagine our amazement when we heard two high school seniors had proved a mathematical puzzle that was thought to be impossible for two thousand years.

We met Calcea Johnson and Ne'Kiya Jackson at their all-girls Catholic high school in New Orleans. And, as we first reported last year, we expected to find two mathematical prodigies.

Instead, we found at St. Mary's Academy , all students are told their possibilities are boundless.

Come Mardi Gras season, New Orleans is alive with colorful parades, replete with floats, and beads, and high school marching bands.

In a city wh

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