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.
Zwei Probleme aus der klassischen Mechanik haben mehrere Jahrhunderte mathematischer Bemühung getrotzt. Im ersten Problem handelt es sich darum, die Trajektorie eines schräg geworfenen Körpers im erdnahen Schwerefeld und Newton'schen Strömungswiderstand zu berechnen. Das zugrundeliegende Kraftgesetz wurde bereits von Newton (17. Jhd.) entdeckt. Beim zweiten Problem ist das Ziel die Beschreibung einer Partikel-Wand-Kollision unter Hertz’scher Kollisionskraft und linearer Dämpfung. Die Kollisionskraft wurde bereits 1858 von Hertz hergeleitet, eine lineare Dämpfungskraft ist seit Stokes (1850) bekannt.
Diese Arbeit setzt sich also die analytische Lösung dieser bisher nur näherungsweise oder numerisch gelösten Probleme zum Ziele. Zunächst werden die beiden Probleme im verallgemeinerten Kontext vollanalytisch gelöst, diese danach mit numerischen Lösungen verglichen und schließlich ausgehend von den analytischen Lösungen Aussagen über das physikalische Verhalten hergeleitet.
>> my idiot ten year old son struggles with division and hasn’t memorized multiplication tables.
When I was your son’s age, according to the academic standards at the time, I often ranked in the top 2% in the area of mathematics nationwide. And I didn’t memorize jack squat, and yeah, division sucks. So I’m not seeing the corollary to idiocy.
He is not an idiot. Just gifted at something else.
Hey! On Shouryya Ray's first day in Fight Club, The Trayvon would have beaten his @ss.
Twice, for mentioning that pussy "maths" stuff...
hey, bank shots could come in handy!
I watched the National Geography Bee the other night and I'll bet it was 80% Indian.
Pretty cool that they had Texas accents, though.
Is that the guy they talk about in the movie Good Will Hunting? If so, it’s the first thing I thought about when I read this story.
Back here in the states, my daughter got a 95 instead of the 90 she expected in Math and the only thing that can account for this is that the softball coaching math teacher gave her credit for her high batting average. So, this poor mathematician kid who says he’s not good at sports better not move here because our moronic teachers will grade you based on making them look good as a coach, not solving 300 plus year old math and science questions!
Seriously, there’s nothing more he needs to do to get into MIT or Harvard.
The kid says he isn’t good in social sciences, but that’s probably only because in this PC world the crap even the German schools try to feed him makes no rational sense.
“...can we send him to DC to teach them basic math.. like how to balance a check book?”
They don’t want to know
With math, to solve something, you provide proofs.
It’s just a matter of creating equations.
Correct. :D
Deming was a physics PhD but his business card described him as a consultant in statistical studies. Theoretical physics is all about very high math.
Salve
Now this is what I call being smart and I love smart people, but don’t worry with teachers who threaten teenager that he can be imprison for being against Obama will surely solve Mathematical problems.
There was a kid who came up with new idea of less expensive tests for pancreases cancer, somewhere ohh he must have some help and no, ball dooodoo kid is smart, it is people who are so jealous of knowing that teenagers can turn their thinking upside down, it makes them nervous.
Dear Lord......
Merci
Do you call him idiot? With kids you get what you emphasize.
I see now why he’s ahead of our kids. We just study math, he studies maths. We are limiting ourselves. And then there’s the fact that liberals are running our educational system. There is that.
Fun way to do it. I only got 12 correct. It took me awhile to find my calculator for problem #6! ;)
Did they mention the part about how the Conservatives were dumbing down the system when they have no control and the unions run the show?
There is much to what you say.
Personally I am able to do fairly complex chain calculations in my head because I can “see” the numbers as the calculation unfolds.
However, give me a ruler and ask me to draw a straight line between two points or drive a nail straight in with a hammer and I am lost.
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