It's a bit of an urban legend in mathematics.

There's a sort of a romance to the story in a way.

I'm Allison Partial, you're listening to Science quickly.

Today, we've got an episode about a mysterious figure in the online math world.

They disappeared years ago, but they're still sparking debate and speculation.

We all love a good puzzle.

Some people have their crosswords, some people play Sudoku, other people are still doing

Wordal.

But Ron Gordon, a patent agent and a former physicist in Massachusetts, does hardcore calculus.

Back in 2013, when our story takes place, he spent enough time on this online forum

called Maths Back Exchange that it could have qualified as a full-time job.

I was working my full-time job and then I was supposed to exchange, plus I had a family

too.

I was having so much fun with it that I just didn't even keep track of how many hours

I was dedicating to it.

The mathematics stack exchange website is like Yahoo Answers, if the people on Yahoo Answers

had graduate level STEM degrees.

Now Ron Gordon has solved 2,954 math problems in his decade on stack exchange, but he's

most famous for his answer to one integral in particular.

On November 11, 2013, a stack exchange user asked a question.

I need help with this integral.

The integral from negative 1 to 1 of 1 over x times the square root of 1 plus x over 1

...