http://www.thelocal.de/education/20120523-42687.htmlShouryya 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.
http://www.telegraphindia(...)n/story_15537378.jspMay 26: A 16-year-old schoolboy who had moved from Calcutta to Germany four years ago has earned himself the title of Young Scientist after solving a problem said to have been posed by Isaac Newton over 300 years ago, German media has reported.
Shouryya Ray, a resident of Dresden, has solved a differential equation that addresses a fundamental problem in particle dynamics and may be used to predict the flight path of a ball bouncing off a wall, the German paper Die Welt said.
The report said Shouryya had developed an analytical solution for a particle dynamics problem that had until now been addressed through numerical solutions using computers that yielded results based on approximations.
The report suggests that this is a mathematical achievement an analytical solution is a complete solution in contrast to an approximation, said Velayudhan A. Raghunathan, a physicist at the Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, who is not familiar with Shouryyas work.
Some physicists are still unclear about Rays achievement.
The flight of a ball is classical Newtonian dynamics all we need (to describe the motion) is the angle at which the ball is projected and the coefficient of elasticity which describes the interaction of the ball with the wall, said K. Subbaramaiah, an executive member of the Indian Association of Physics Teachers.
Shouryyas feat, the paper said, has helped him win a competition in Germans Saxony province where senior schoolchildren presented myriad projects from the effects of breakfast on the ability to concentrate, to the cloning of a gene, to a solar car.
Shouryya has just taken the Abitur, the equivalent of the Class 12 exam, at the Martin Andersen Nexo High School in Dresden. He attributes his interest in science to his father, Subhashis Ray, an engineer who works as a research assistant at the Technical University of Freiburg, saying he instilled in him a hunger for mathematics by teaching him calculus at the age of six.
Subhashis said he was no longer able to keep up with his sons mathematical prowess. He never discussed his project with me before it was finished and the mathematics he used are far beyond my reach, The Times, London, quoted him as saying.
Shouryya encountered the problem during a visit to the Technical University in Dresden with fellow students, when he was provided the raw data to evaluate a numerical simulation that can be used to describe the flight path of a ball thrown at a wall.
When he realised that the current approximation method could not yield an exact result, Shouryya decided to take the problem on.
I asked myself, Why cant it work? Shouryya was quoted by Die Welt as saying.
Shouryya, the paper said, doesnt think hes a genius. He was weak in graph theory and had trouble even with problems for beginners. It said hes even worse in the social sciences, and quoted him as saying: In football, I would be bad even in India.
But he worked for several months on the differential equation and came up with the solution after many blind alleys, the paper said. It added that Shouryya was still unclear whether to major in physics or in mathematics.
[ Bericht 21% gewijzigd door Bram_van_Loon op 27-05-2012 01:09:44 ]
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