16-Year Old Solves 300 Year Old Newton Math Problem

[Ben]

Apropos of our forum, since it involves projectiles moving through the atmosphere:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/27/german-teen-solves-300-year-old-mathematical-riddle-posed-by-sir-isaac-newton/

I had no idea we've only had partial solutions for this until now.

[RoadKingLarry]

There is a bit of a disconnect between the title of the thread and Ben's comments and the posted link.

[Ben]

Oops. Pasted the wrong link. Fixed :)

[Brad Johnson]

Checky linky.  The story you linked to definitely shows a problem solved, just not a mathmatic one.

edit - Looks like I wasn't quite quick enough on the submit button.  RKL got his two cents in first.

Brad

[Azrael256]

This doesn't always happen, and it's not really the "norm", but I always find it funny when a kid just *does* something because somebody forgot to tell him it was hard.

[Viking]

This doesn't always happen, and it's not really the "norm", but I always find it funny when a kid just *does* something because somebody forgot to tell him it was hard.

Pratchett is fond of using the "Nobody had told him/her it was impossible to do [whatever], so he/she just went and did it".

[Hawkmoon]

Y'all seem to be overlooking the importance of this:

Both problems Ray resolved are from the field of dynamics and his solutions are expected to contribute to greater precision in areas such as ballistics.

[vaskidmark]

Shouryya Ray worked out how to calculate exactly the path of a projectile under gravity and subject to air resistance ....

And yet for more than 300 years most folks were more concerned with assuring that a projectile operating under those conditions arrived at Point B from Point A, as opposed to worrying about all the neighborhoods it passed through on its way.

If that wasn't enough of an achievement, Ray has also solved a second problem, dealing with the collision of a body with a wall, that was posed in the 19th century. ....

Not knowing what the problem was, I have no way of determining how much import this has to practicallity as opposed to the pure knowlege of what happens.

Both problems Ray resolved are from the field of dynamics and his solutions are expected to contribute to greater precision in areas such as ballistics

Again, with most folks being worried about getting things to Point B from Point A as opposed to knowing everywhere it was while doing so, I would need someone to 'splain the importance of both these achievements except the part about finding the value of X after so many others did not quite get it right.

stay safe.

[drewtam]

Skid,

Math problems can be solved 3 ways:

1- closed form solution, most elegant and pleasing to the mathematicians
2- numerically, take an unsolved equation convert it to a step by step computation for a computer to step through to get a good enough answer. This method is used for such complex equations as the Navier-Stokes partial diff eq.
3- empirically, ignore the physics, take data on what actually happens, create an equation that roughly fits through the data

The article doesn't explain very well, but I suspect everyone has used 2&3 for this problem, and this kid figured out #1. Good job kid.

[brimic]

I'm glad I held off on buying the latest Kestrel wind meter, maybe next years model will correct for the Newtonian unsolveable.

[MicroBalrog]

What is it with the recent flow of articles where $surprisingly_young_person_makes_discovery?

10-year Old Girl Discovers Molecule
Canadian Girl, 16, invents disease fighting, anti-aging compound
13-year-old girl invents Lollipops that cure hiccups
15-year-old invents more accurate test for pancreating cancer
Teen invents anti-concussion gel cap


Now it's clear that there had always been various amazing wonder-kids making inventions - what's with the sudden interest in this topic?

[AJ Dual]

What is it with the recent flow of articles where $surprisingly_young_person_makes_discovery?

10-year Old Girl Discovers Molecule
Canadian Girl, 16, invents disease fighting, anti-aging compound
13-year-old girl invents Lollipops that cure hiccups
15-year-old invents more accurate test for pancreating cancer
Teen invents anti-concussion gel cap


Now it's clear that there had always been various amazing wonder-kids making inventions - what's with the sudden interest in this topic?

News media scrambling for ad clicks. Might not even be conscious choosing on their part. I'm sure there's selection-bias experiments done by university psych departments, that describes the psychological mechanism.

Where you look at a room of people looking at pictures of elephants, and then you go into your own booth and choose pictures of animals to look at, and 70% of the test subjects also then pick elephants etc.

[HankB]

Shouryya Ray worked out how to calculate exactly the path of a projectile under gravity and subject to air resistance ....

It will be interesting to see how precisely the alleged solution matches reality, and how it treats boundary layers, compressibility, air pressure, humidity, temperature, and projectile shape, or if it accounts for things like a projectile's initial instability and spin drift.

[drewtam]

Now it's clear that there had always been various amazing wonder-kids making inventions - what's with the sudden interest in this topic?

http://fourthturning.com/html/millennial_generation.html

Because we have entered a new generation growing up in the height of careful, direct parenting and positive messaging that anything can be achieved by today's youth and young adults.

Previous examples...
http://fourthturning.com/html/gi_generation.html
http://fourthturning.com/html/republican_generation.html
http://fourthturning.com/html/glorius_generation.html
http://fourthturning.com/html/elizabethan_generation.html



This parenting style will wane over the next decades. Reaching a trough with a new generation of latchkey kids.

Previous examples...
http://fourthturning.com/html/13th_generation.html
http://fourthturning.com/html/lost_generation.html
http://fourthturning.com/html/gilded_generation.html
http://fourthturning.com/html/liberty_generation.html
http://fourthturning.com/html/cavalier_generation.html
http://fourthturning.com/html/reprisal_generation.html