Posted on 05/26/2012 3:07:20 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
A 16-year-old schoolboy has solved a mathematical problem which has stumped mathematicians for centuries, a newspaper report said. The boy put the historical breakthrough down to “schoolboy naivety.”
Shouryya Ray, who moved to Germany from India with his family at the age of 12, has baffled scientists and mathematicians by solving two fundamental particle dynamics problems posed by Sir Isaac Newton over 350 years ago, Die Welt newspaper reported on Monday.
Ray’s solutions make it possible to now calculate not only the flight path of a ball, but also predict how it will hit and bounce off a wall. Previously it had only been possible to estimate this using a computer, wrote the paper.
Ray first came across the old problem when his secondary school, which specializes in science, set all their year-11 pupils a research project.
On a visit to the Technical University in Dresden pupils received raw data to evaluate a direct numerical simulation – which can be used to describe the trajectory of a ball when it is thrown.
When he realised the current method could not get an exact result, Ray decided to have a go at solving it. He puts the whole thing down to “schoolboy naivety” - he just refused to accept there was no answer to the problem.
“I asked myself: why can’t it work?” he told the paper.
Ray has been fascinated by what he calls the “intrinsic beauty“ of maths since an early age, according to the report. The boy was inspired by his engineer father who began setting him arithmetic problems at the age of six.
He recently won a youth science competition at the state level in Saxony and won second place in the Maths and IT section at the national final.
Originally from Calcutta, Ray couldn’t speak a word of German when he came to Dresden four years ago – but now he is fluent. Since then, he was moved up two classes in school and is currently sitting his Abitur exams two years early.
But Ray doesn’t think he’s a genius, and told the paper he has weak points as a mathematician, as well as in sports and social sciences.
Ray, whose recent breakthrough may have earned him a paragraph in the schoolbooks of the future, is currently deciding whether to study maths or physics at university.
“my idiot ten year old son”
Ouch. Hopefully you don’t say that to him.
I can think of a few major league outfielders who need this kid's coaching.
The article doesn’t go into much detail about the actual problem statement. I’ll assume it’s a bit more involved than using the angle of restitution used for inelastic collisions, and since numerical simulations are little more than hand calculations performed really really fast, I’ll further assume he derived a closed form solution e.g. a nice “plug-in” formula.
“Meanwhile in America ..”
...we are having Trayvon Martin Day, on which nothing will be accomplished but victimhood will be encouraged.
Can anyone find a solution/formula online. No article has a link. I am a math guy and would like to see this and because some people are posting that this isn’t really true and is only some type of partial solution that does not consider enough variables.
Wouldn’t be the first time journalists get amazed when someone can multiple 2, 2 digit numbers in their head. Article 2 weeks ago about some guy who got beat up and then become a math savant could solve “complex” problems like Pythagorean’s theorem.
To all Another SrÄ«nivÄsa RÄmÄnujan SrÄ«nivÄsa RÄmÄnujan FRS was an Indian mathematician and autodidact who, with almost no formal training in pure mathematics, made extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series and continued fractions. From the land that gave us our numbers (integers 1 - 9) and zero!
Does anyone know what problem he actually solved?
As described here, it’s not that tricky; what am I missing?
And he never will untill it’s drummed into him over and over and over.
The mathematic community is fortunate this kid wasn’t
in an American type grievance history class
Occam’s razor says you’re right.
The first sounds like: Ballistic trajectory with Newtonian friction.
The second: Particle-wall collision using Hertz contact model and linear damping.
Ich bin ein Berlitzer
Inelastic collisions.
I hope he has discovered a fix for FR’s crashing problems also?
Kenya gave us Zero.
*GROAN*
The left sure love projection, don’t they? The National Socialists were masters of accusing their opponents of doing what they themselves were doing or planning to do. The left is the left, whether it’s National Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Social Democracy, Progressivism, or whatever they choose to call it next week. It’s all the same and all from the left; the only difference between any of them is how far down the path to totalitarianism they’ve able to go.
Just by the headline I figured an Indian kid ..... and I was right!!!!
Good for him!!
Just by the headline I figured an Indian kid ..... and I was right!!!!
Good for him!!
Good for him!
And good that his parents got him started in math early.
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