German teen solves 300-year-old mathematical riddle posed by Sir Isaac Newton | Hacker News Reader

German teen solves 300-year-old mathematical riddle posed by Sir Isaac Newton

news.com.au

35 pointsajhai16 comments

I'm not sure what the article is talking about. Movement of a particle under gravitation plus friction is not exactly an unsolved problem. For example: http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/reh10/lectures/ia-dyn-handou...

This sounds like the kind of stuff you would see in a class on ordinary differential equations, usually in your first or second semester of undergrad engineering. Certainly advanced for a high school student, but not really what I would call newsworthy...

News.com.au is essentially an Australian tabloid. Then they quote their source as being (what I believe is) essentially a British tabloid.

This isn't exactly what I expect to see at the top of HN?

agreed, how come this article doesn't link to any more serious publications? I'm tired of dumb journalists using science to make a quick buzz. It's like that kid who had allegedly found a way to derive more energies by making solar panels in the shape of trees, it was complete bullshit.

Traditional media has awful citation conventions. Basically the journalist adds a vague source just to wash his/her hands in case the story turns out to be false. In this case an Australian paper refers to a British paper (without a link or an exact reference) and the story is about a German scientific publication. So this is third or fourth hand story, and you can just guess how much has been lost in translation.

The Sunday Times is no tabloid, but interestingly I couldn't find this on the times website. I will however go out and act like a 20th century nobleman and buy the newspaper today and update the original article if I can find it.

I have been wondering the same thing from some time ago but I only get downvoted. Truth be told, the quality of the homepage/top links has overwhelmingly decreased and a lot of sensationalism have taken over.

Most probably the same way this comment will also get downvoted but I don't care.

I could be wrong, but I believe The Times is generally regarded as a respectable paper over here, and I presume the same to be true of its Sunday counterpart.

What exactly is the problems he's solved again? The article doesn't make it clear...

Incidentally, this is News Limited that reported this. It's not what I'd call a bastion of scientific credibility.

Here's a press release from the original university page:

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...

And (what I assume is) a press release from an apparent research journal:

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?act=url&#...

I'trying to get the paper but only found the formula.

https://www.jugend-forscht.de/images/1MAT_67_download.jpg

The name of the paper is:

Analytische Lösung von zwei ungelösten fundamentalen Partikeldynamikproblemen

I'm so bad at math couldn't figure out which one is 'v's which one is 'u's

What's the solution? All I can seem to find is http://jugend-forscht-sachsen.de/2012/teilnehmer/fachgebiet/...

I doubt he actually has the solution, unless he solved the turbulence problem and the movement of a body through gas mathematically.

The university press release mentioned above states that he gave analytical approximations. So, he did not solve things analytically. The press release also does not mention the quality of those approximations.

Interestingly was 2nd place in competition http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=...

For those wanting to know more, or one of the original articles, take a look here: http://www.morgenpost.de/vermischtes/article106358144/16-jae... BTW, I really don't understand the australian press... why presenting him as german??? The guy is as indian as he can be, he is just studying in Dresden.

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