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Bullet drop figured out, FINALLY!!!!!!
bpost
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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, 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 Ray resolved are from the field of dynamics and his solutions are expected to contribute to greater precision in areas such as ballistics.
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.
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, 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 Ray resolved are from the field of dynamics and his solutions are expected to contribute to greater precision in areas such as ballistics.
Are you being facetious? [}:)] If so, I would be too.[}:)][:D][:D]
It's a good thing this kid came along and solved all the the problems we've found solutions to for the last forty years. Only 17 years, though, if you count when we had the internet so we could access it all.
Or, maybe in fact, the science world is really that far out of touch with the shooting world...?
quote:Although it's a meaningful break-thru in the field of mathematics, this will not affect how ballistic calculations are done at all.
Here's my take.
Newton formulated his laws of motion which are basically formulas which describe how things move, collide, etc. Then he and others set about to solve the formulas so we can predict things. We've been very successful at solving the formulas in many ways. Especially with modern computational power, we can apply iterative (time stepping) solutions which solve the equations of motion in tiny (0.001 seconds or smaller) time steps which result in answers that are approximate by math standards, but that just means they're not guaranteed to be accurate to the 100th decimal place; NOTHING of practical concern. What this young German (or Indian?) boy has done is to solve the equations of motion for projectile flight in an analytical form, which is what mathematicians consider 'exact'. The solution is far more efficient since you don't have to take many small time steps, but considering modern computational resources found even in small phones, the efficiency is a non-issue in most applications.
Some more detail about the 'break-thru' solution:
* The exact analytic solution assumes constant drag coefficient, which is only close to reality in pure subsonic flight. So the equation cannot be applied accurately to supersonic flight at all.
* The 'stroke of genius' that made the analytic formula possible was a transformation of variables from positional space to 'velocity space'. Transformation of variables is a known means of solving problems in math but it takes great insight to find a transformation that will actually work.
My hat's off to the young man for his genius. Unfortunately I don't see this break-thru affecting our ability to calculate trajectories any more accurately than we do now.
In my experience, the biggest limitation with our ability to predict accurate trajectories is accurate inputs: MV, BC, atmospherics, range, actual value of scope adjustments, etc.
Sorry to be a buzz kill, but the news is well known for pumping things up.
Here's a link to a site where you can read more discussion about the actual math, by actual mathematicians:
http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/u7551/teen_solves_newtons_300yearold_riddle_an/c4sxd91
-Bryan
You mean all of that trial & error I needed to fire at Edson Range on Camp Pendleton from 200 - 900 yards can now be figured out with nothing more than a pencil & paper? Amazing- just think of the money the military will be able to save!!
I don't see any fun in that!