The College Fix

A sixteen-year-old from Calcutta has reportedly solved a math problem that had previously been considered “uncrackable.” Here’s the scoop:

New Delhi, May 26: Shouryya Ray, a 16-year-old Kolkata boy who came to Germany without any knowledge of German, has managed to solve two fundamental particle dynamics theories which physicists have previously been able to calculate only by using powerful computers.

Shouryya currently in Dresden has cracked a 350-year-old maths problem set by Sir Isaac Newton.

His solutions mean that scientists can now calculate the flight path of a thrown ball and then predict how it will hit and bounce off a wall.

Ray came across the problems during a school trip to Dresden University where professors claimed they were uncrackable. “I just asked myself, Why not?,” says Ray.

“I think it was just schoolboy naivety. I didn’t believe there couldn’t be a solution,” he added.

“I didn’t believe there couldn’t be a solution,” he added.

Ray began solving complicated equations as a six-year-old but says he’s no genius. His intelligence was quickly noted in class and he was pushed up two years in school- he is currently sitting his exams early.

“There are other things at school I wish I was better at – football for one,” he said.

For years Shouryya has enjoyed what he calls ‘intrinsic beauty’ of maths.

Not bad for a sixteen-year-old.

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