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Teen solves 300 year old Calculus problem!

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Re: Teen solves 300 year old Calculus problem!

Unread postby Fiddlerdave » Thu 31 May 2012, 13:30:26

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Beery1', 'W')ell done, kid!

And he's in Germany, where they tend to do schooling right, and not in the US or UK, where his genius might have been stifled by incompetent teachers or school officials.

For very bright children school is irrelevant
They will still get there.
If only this were true.

With only rare exception, the fulfillment of brilliance needs support and teaching to become fully expressed.

And it is often crushed by society and our educational system. AI have seen it done.
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Re: Teen solves 300 year old Calculus problem!

Unread postby Timo » Thu 31 May 2012, 16:44:02

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ohanian', 'T')he problem he solved is as follows:
Let (x(t),y(t)) be the position of a particle at time t. Let g be the acceleration due to gravity and c the constant of friction. Solve the differential equation:
(x''(t)2 + (y''(t)+g)2 )1/2 = c*(x'(t)2 + y'(t)2 )
subject to the constraint that (x''(t),y''(t)+g) is always opposite in direction to (x'(t),y'(t)).
Finding the general solution to this differential equation will find the general solution for the path of a particle which has drag proportional to the square of the velocity (and opposite in direction). Here's an explanation how this differential equation encodes the motion of such a particle:
The square of the velocity is:
x'(t)2 + y'(t)2
The total acceleraton is:
( x''(t)2 + y''(t)2 )1/2
The acceleration due to gravity is g in the negative y direction.
Thus the drag (acceleration due only to friction) is:
( x''(t)2 + (y''(t)+g)2 )1/2
Thus path of such a particle satisfies the differential equation:
( x''(t)2 + (y''(t)+g)2 )1/2 = c*(x'(t)2 + y'(t)2 )
Of course, we also require the direction of the drag (x''(t),y''(t)+g) to be opposite to the direction of the velocity (x'(t),y'(t)). Once we find the intial position and velocity of the particle, uniqueness theorems tell us its path is uniquely determined.


[smilie=5headache.gif]

Reading that makes me want to trade that bottle in front of me for a frontal labotomy. Ugh!!!
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Re: Teen solves 300 year old Calculus problem!

Unread postby cipi604 » Thu 31 May 2012, 17:49:55

his father said that the mathematics of his son was beyond his knowledge so... this is basic mathematics in university, at age 16 yes it is far for his age but at the global level he has to learn years to come.

The calculations to get from A to B take a while ... with pen and paper, but everyone should understand it.
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Re: Teen solves 300 year old Calculus problem!

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Fri 01 Jun 2012, 01:42:10

pelli makes it look easy:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')onsider a projectile moving in gravity with quadratic air resistance. The governing equations are
u' = -a * u * sqrt( u2 + v2 )
v' = -a * v * sqrt( u2 + v2 ) - g
where a is the coefficient of air resistance defined by |F| = ma|v|2 .
Cross-multiply and rearrange to find
a * sqrt( u2 + v2) * (uv'-vu') = gu'
Substitute v = su and separate variables:
a * sqrt( 1 + s2 ) * s' = g*u'/u3
Integrate both sides to get the answer:
g/u2 + a(v * sqrt( u2 + v2 )/u2 + arcsinh|v/u|) = const

This gives a nice implicit relationship between the vertical and horizontal velocities. To get the actual trajectory still requires integration (presumably numerical).
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Re: Teen solves 300 year old Calculus problem!

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Fri 01 Jun 2012, 05:50:43

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', ' ')I think there are a lot of factors that will still require the numerical approach for real-world applications.

To anyone who has had much college level math, isn't this rather obvious?

The "numerical analysis" class I took in college in '80, if memory serves, was highly recommended by my computer science advisor as being one of the more practical problem-solving courses a computer geek like me could take. Especially given that I dropped my math minor due to advanced calculus being more than I was willing to put up with (seemed to be proving all the stuff we learned in 3 semesters of calculus -- I'd rather have wounds closed without anesthetic, thank you).

All kinds of cool practical numerical analysis tools, like using cubic splines for curve fitting worked wonders when traditional strictly analytic methods were way beyond us (at least at the undergraduate level). And that was over 30 years ago.

Now that we have some awareness of the incredible complexity of the natural world via chaos theory, the need for practical numerical analysis should be blindingly obvious, and (I presume) very commonly used. (For example, despite all the recent additional complexity for weather prediction models -- look how inaccurate thunderstorm predictions are over the summer for the typical midwestern American city. And that's just one day forecasts. Now go out over 3 days, and the weather predictions bear little resemblence to reality).

Try finding a strictly analytic solution to THAT problem. Not likely.

I think I agree with the posts above that though this is a nice accomplishment, it will likely have limited PRACTICAL implications. Dealing with chaotic natural issues, like weather, is a necessary inconvenience when air resistance issues come into play in the real world.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: Teen solves 300 year old Calculus problem!

Unread postby vision-master » Fri 01 Jun 2012, 08:10:05

Why is 'Three' so sacred?
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