[dba-Tech] While You're Up, Son, Get Me a Beer

That is just terrific!  Thanks for posting.
T

Tina Norris Fields
tinanfields at torchlake.com
231-322-2787


On 5/28/2012 12:56 PM, Arthur Fuller wrote:
> German teen Shouryya Ray solves 300-year-old mathematical riddle posed by
> Sir Isaac Newton
>
> *A GERMAN 16-year-old has become the first person to solve a mathematical
> problem posed by Sir Isaac Newton more than 300 years ago.*
>
> Shouryya Ray worked out how to calculate exactly the path of a projectile
> under gravity and subject to air resistance, *The (London) Sunday Times*
> reported.
>
> The Indian-born teen said he solved the problem that had stumped
> mathematicians for centuries while working on a school project.
>
> Mr Ray won a research award for his efforts and has been labeled a genius
> by the German media, but he put it down to "curiosity and schoolboy
> naivety".
>
> "When it was explained to us that the problems had no solutions, I thought
> to myself, 'well, there's no harm in trying,'" he said.
>
> Mr Ray's family moved to Germany when he was 12 after his engineer father
> got a job at a technical college. He said his father instilled in him a
> "hunger for mathematics" and taught him calculus at the age of six.
>
> Mr Ray's father, Subhashis, said his son's mathematical prowess quickly
> outstripped his own considerable knowledge.
>
> "He never discussed his project with me before it was finished and the
> mathematics he used are far beyond my reach," he said.
>
> Despite not speaking a word of German when he arrived, Mr Ray will this
> week sit Germany's high school leaving exams, two years ahead of his peers.
>
> Newton posed the problem, relating to the movement of projectiles through
> the air, in the 17th century. Mathematicians had only been able to offer
> partial solutions until now.
>
> If that wasn't enough of an achievement, Mr Ray has also solved a second
> problem, dealing with the collision of a body with a wall, that was posed
> in the 19th century.
>
> Both problems Mr Ray resolved are from the field of dynamics and his
> solutions are expected to contribute to greater precision in areas such as
> ballistics.