17-Year-Old Wins Intel's $100K Science Prize

autospa writes "A California teenager who cracked a complex mathematical equation has been awarded the Intel Science Talent Search's $100,000 first-place prize. Evan O'Dorney, 17, won the prize for 'his mathematical project in which he compared two ways to estimate the square root of an integer. [He] discovered precisely when the faster way would work,' Intel announced Wednesday."

Comments

Breaking Stereotypes

[MyLongNickName]

This 17 year-old is breaking age stereotypes. I applaud that someone this old is still contributing to the field of mathematics. Kudos you old man!

(insert obligatory XKCD here)

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

(insert obligatory XKCD here)

Yes?

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

(insert obligatory XKCD here)

http://xkcdsucks.blogspot.com/

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

(insert obligatory XKCD here)

http://xkcdsucks.blogspot.com/

Link contains malware, om. Vy 73!

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[hoytak]

http://xkcd.com/447/

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[bigredradio]

He is also from Boston and likes to drink beer and get into fights with his friends. The boy is "wicked smart".

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Teun]

Sorry but what are these 'friends'?

The poor guy is homeschooled!

Whatever the advantages of good supervision in the home are, they are outweighed by the lack of day long interaction with others.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[davester666]

Now Intel can ship a patch to Windows, so that the sqrt() function of the FPU in their CPU's will calculate correctly.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

Movie references. How do they work?

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

obviously. i mean, what kind of degenerate wins a 100k prize for math at the age of 17?

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[mdielmann]

It could be argued that not being surrounded by under-supervised near-sociopaths until such an age as to not be a near-sociopath yourself isn't a bad thing. A number of famous people in many walks of life were home-schooled, including the likes of Thomas Edison. Here's a link of famous homeschooled people you might recognize. Granted, it's from a site promoting home schooling, but it still gives you plenty of names to google for further verification.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he is doing just fine...

Someone like that would be ostracized in a public school. Would probably be so bored and just goof off. Never mind the harassment he would be getting from his peers. Instead he has decided to MAKE something out of his life and get a good start on it. Also 50-60k of dosh sure will not hurt as a good start.

He will need to watch out and make sure he doesnt become weird though. Isolation will do that. He will need people to keep challenging him to do better. Or else once he leaves home he may slack off. It is up to him. I have seen it a few times.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[MaWeiTao]

Whatever the advantages of good supervision in the home are, they are outweighed by the lack of day long interaction with others.

I'm not really fan of homeschooling, although I have no problem with people who want to do it. Americans place far too much importance on socializing, especially at the expense of academic excellence. I guarantee you the top academic performers aren't wasting their time interacting with classmates.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[eastlight_jim]

There's also a very similar SMBC cartoon (although a little later than the XKCD one).

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[MoonBuggy]

It could be argued that not being surrounded by under-supervised near-sociopaths until such an age as to not be a near-sociopath yourself isn't a bad thing.

Possibly, but you're going to have to deal with them eventually - maybe it's better to get a head start? Admittedly the argument that "You should start doing [unpleasant thing] early, because you'll have to do it sooner or later" has never appealed to me - it seems better to minimise the total lifetime exposure to unpleasant people/activities, but my anecdotal experience suggest that those who weren't immersed in the social aspects of school during their formative years do have trouble picking it up later.

I honestly don't know; I was thoroughly miserable at school, and it certainly didn't do much for my academic achievement that couldn't be replaced by a few decent textbooks, so maybe I'm rationalising in the hope that it wasn't all for absolutely nothing.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[c6gunner]

It could be argued that not being surrounded by under-supervised near-sociopaths until such an age as to not be a near-sociopath yourself isn't a bad thing.

This assumes that your parents aren't near-sociopaths themselves; an unfounded and unlikely assumption.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[fahlesr1]

One of my roommates in college was home schooled. He was also one of the smartest people I met in college, though I can't say if that was from natural ability or his insane study habits. He was also very self-disciplined and I still am envious of his self control. He was a little socially awkward, but not much more than any other geek (he was after all a physics major, I was computer science)

Granted he is only one example, but when you look at the state of public education, its no wonder so many people choose to home school. Homeschooling isn't entirely anti-social either. He was in a homeschooling group with several other home schoolers, their parents would would take turns teaching the subjects they were strongest in. I've also heard of homeschooling being able to join the extracurricular activities at their local public high schools, such as sports or band.

I don't know much about that world, but I think there's a lot more opportunity there than most people would expect. In any case its something I'll seriously consider when/if I have children. I am somewhat disillusioned with public education. My high school had such a bad drug problem they removed all the doors from the rest room stalls so it was easier to catch students smoking weed.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

He could be up for the Fields medal.... oops, too late!

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[recrudescence]

Actually, Thomas Edison is probably the worst example you could pick. Reportedly the man was a sociopath. For all his genius and cunning, he still:

• electrocuted animals with AC current and invented and popularized the electric chair just to make a marketing point of AC being unsafe, so he would promote a DC current as the standard (arguably a less safe form of electricity) for common use.
• He manipulated or outright cheated the patent system out of other people's inventions; the most famous one being the lightbulb.
• Relied on (what I would call 'Apple-like') marketing rather than facts to manipulate public opinion, intimidate, and promote a lot of his ideas, sidelining significantly better opponents and inventions / discoveries.
• His antics among others, severely limited the work of a *true* genius of the time, Nikolai Tesla, purely for monetary and personal gratification, setting science back by years http://goo.gl/vguj5

Shrewd business man? Yes. Ambitious? Skilled inventor and scientist? Yes. Hardworking? Yes ... but also a sociopath nonetheless.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

For your viewing pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQoSRfu5z_4

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[demonlapin]

Most of the top academic performers will eventually go on to be the best engineer in their company. Meanwhile, the future CEO is hanging out with his classmates.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[mug funky]

OMG, Mr. Saddo or what?

nice blog man. i'm totally going to buy all your merch and f5 you every monday, wednesday and friday.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[mug funky]

oh, God, teacher logic.

they have to pull the door off rather than install a big, fucking loud smoke detector that will make everyone point and laugh and the smoker lurch out of there with their tail between their legs.

they could even put, i don't know, a little cage around the smoke detector so the kiddies couldn't disable it? or place it out of safe reach?

nah, teachers don't think like that.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm gonna need a citation supporting that. like rates of sociopathy broken down into demographics.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[mug funky]

please, no URL shorteners. this isn't twitter, and i don't know if you're hiding a goatse behind that.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the $100K winner and mdielmann just broke YOUR stereotype of homeschoolers.
How much did you win?
You must have attended public school -- poor guy.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Kjella]

Well, a lot of famous people WERE weird in some way or another. Average people tend to lead average and balanced lives, which quite frankly limits your potential to be extreme in something and become famous for it. Would Stephen Hawking be the famous scientist if he wasn't a cripple, just as bright but out partying with the girls and worked part time in a store to get money for a car? Probably not. Or look at someone like Perelman, brilliant mathematician, turned down the Fields medal, turned down 1 million dollar in cash and don't even cope well with his fellow mathematicians. And they say many top executives exhibits signs of being sociopaths.

The other thing is that I think there's at least two groups that homeschool, those that homeschool because they feel the current education system is too poor, those people often get a very high quality educations. Then you have all the people that homeschool because they have their own religious/moral teachings they'd like to push instead.

I don't think I'd ever homeschool a child, a private school perhaps but that's quite different and more organized. The school setting itself I think is very healthy for development of social skills and you need good teachers to get high theoretical and practical skills. Though I suppose if you don't have a better alternative....

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[YoshiDan]

http://goatkcd.com/447/

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[mattack2]

Would he be famous? Who knows.. But he got his B.A. in natural sciences, with a scholarship, at age 20.. and was diagnosed at age 21.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[YoshiDan]

Better than what they did at my high school. They put big metal doors at the entrances to the toilets and locked them during class hours and refused to let students use them except for morning break and lunch (which were both really far apart). As if people somehow have control over how their body works. And they had teachers going into the toilets every 5 minutes on break times...

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[YoshiDan]

It links to this http://www.electroherbalism.com/Bioelectronics/Tesla/TeslaversusEdison.htm

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you just rented The Prestige? Edison and his men are at it again!

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

As a previous homeschool student, it frustrates me when people propagate these misconceptions.

Most homeschoolers belong to homeschool groups which organize many group activities such as sports teams, field trips, and other purely social events (e.g. going to the movies in the middle of a weekday). These groups can also function as pseudo-private schools by hiring teachers to teach groups of students for subjects that are outside the parents' abilities (e.g. a local doctor taught my biology class).

It's not that homeschoolers don't socialize. It's that they (mostly) don't mix school with socializing. Instead of spending 8 hours a day on 2 hours of material, we spend 2 hours a day on school and do whatever we want with the rest of our free time.

One thing that people tend to forget is that many homeschoolers left other schools because they had existing learning disabilities or behavioral problems that required additional attention.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[fluffy99]

Sorry but what are these 'friends'?

The poor guy is homeschooled!

Whatever the advantages of good supervision in the home are, they are outweighed by the lack of day long interaction with others.

Public school for very bright kids often prevents them from excelling. Public schools in the US (particularly after the no-child-left-behind nonsense) teach to the lowest common denominator and classes only progress at the pace of the slowest kid in the room. Whereas homeschooling and Charter type schools are far more flexible in focusing on a particular child's needs and abilities. Besides, there is nothing saying a homeschooled kid can't have an active social life and develop good social skills.

My kid homeschools for 3 hours a day. She is testing several grades ahead her public schools friends, some of whom are barely literate.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Seumas]

When I was 17, I was skipping school and sleeping with older married women. Kids like this make me feel like a waste of a human being.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[cshabazian]

Ok, you are just wrong here. Evan is NOT homeschooled, he attends an alternate study school called Venture because he is so far ahead of his peers, he would be bored in a standard school. Although he was able to test out of high school at 12 years old, his parents insisted that he stay in school with his peers so that he wouldn't have the same social issues that most kids with his intelligence level possess. Evan's parents have ensured that not only is he well adjusted, but he participates in all kinds of activities outside of his incredible level of intelligence. In addition to science, he was the national spelling bee champion, is an accomplished musician, and participates in all kinds of non-academic activities. Evan lives near me, and I am friends with the Principal of his school (Venture), so unlike many who are simply making things up or guessing, these are facts. Not only should we be impressed by his skills, but we should awed by his parents dedication to ensuring that Evan is not only given the opportunity for academic achievement (he recently got one of 200 early admission offers to Harvard), but is given the opportunity to be a "normal" kid and learn how to socialize instead of just being an academic...

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[tyrione]

He is also from Boston and likes to drink beer and get into fights with his friends. The boy is "wicked smart".

Unfortunately, he was all outta dem Apples.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[tyrione]

Setting Science back by years? Try half a century.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[tehcyder]

It could be argued that not being surrounded by under-supervised near-sociopaths until such an age as to not be a near-sociopath yourself isn't a bad thing. A number of famous people in many walks of life were home-schooled, including the likes of Thomas Edison. Here's a link of famous homeschooled people you might recognize. Granted, it's from a site promoting home schooling, but it still gives you plenty of names to google for further verification.

Home schooling is purely for political or religious extremists who think their children are unique and should remain unsullied by reality. Either that or it's for spoiled, stupid social inadequates.

Blah blah blah, I know this will be modded as flamebait, but it's overwhelmingly true.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[tehcyder]

Homeschooling isn't entirely anti-social either. He was in a homeschooling group with several other home schoolers, their parents would would take turns teaching the subjects they were strongest in.

And if you have enough parents and enough different children, oh look, you have what we normal people call a fucking school.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[tehcyder]

i'm gonna need a citation supporting that. like rates of sociopathy broken down into demographics.

You don't need to. By definition anyone who thinks they and their children are superior to the common herd and must be kept apart for fear of ideological or physical contamination are fucking sociopaths and/or retards.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[tehcyder]

Would Stephen Hawking be the famous scientist if he wasn't a cripple, just as bright but out partying with the girls and worked part time in a store to get money for a car?

Yes he would, you fucking idiot.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[tehcyder]

Whereas homeschooling and Charter type schools are far more flexible in focusing on a particular child's needs and abilities.

I know it's socialist, because everyone would have to pay for it by proper taxation, but shouldn't all children have this sort of education and attention?

Just because a kid is born to rich, interested parents doesn't mean they should be get a better education. They've not done anything to deserve it. Giving especially gifted children additional or specialized or accelerated help is not incompatible with providing everyone with the same baseline quality education.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[tehcyder]

When I was 17, I was skipping school and sleeping with older married women. Kids like this make me feel like a waste of a human being.

I know who I'm more envious of, and it's not the kid who's good at maths.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Mathinker]

> i don't know if you're hiding a goatse behind that.

Depending on your outlook, it might be worse, it links to a page at "www.electroherbalism.com" ....

FYI: Like many shortened URLs, the full goo.gl URLs can be peeked at:
in this case, by adding ".info" at the end: http://goo.gl/vguj5.info or by adding /info/ on the top level: http://goo.gl/info/vguj5

This info was easily found using Google itself...

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Ol Olsoc]

Thomas Edison. Yeah, there was one normal dude. Who could forget the tender moment when he electrocuted an elephant to show that upstart Tesla's alternating current ideas were bad. If that's what is coming out of home schools, they might not want to brag about it.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Ol Olsoc]

I'm always getting Goatse and Edison mixed up.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[drinkypoo]

Setting Science back by years? Try half a century.

Edison set Tesla back years. Westinghouse set Tesla back for life.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Seumas]

I don't know, I'd probably trade in all the trouble making I did in my teens to be one of those ridiculously smart and ambitious kids who are applying for college at thirteen and getting patents at fourteen. I've never heard one of those genius kids grow up and voice regret about their childhood being spent being smart and successful. :)

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[mdielmann]

Which I specifically stated. I also wouldn't classify Einstein as homeschooled. From what I read, he was in formal schooling most of his life, except for some extracurricular study in math, physics, and philosophy.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[mdielmann]

The alternative is that you believe that your kid is just slightly above average and you don't want him held back to the level of the dumbest kid in his class, or that you think the current education system is crap (which is almost saying the same thing. And how many times do we hear that opinion stated on Slashdot?

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Teun]

OK, that's some extra and interesting information what was not present in the original article.

Thanks.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[Teun]

You have a negative approach that could even be construed as jealousy.
Any society should not waste it's resources and that's what is happening in the present USofA.
The country as a whole could gain a lot when all had a fair chance at the best education, history shows the returns on investment are obvious.

Re:Breaking Stereotypes

[MyLongNickName]

If you are prou or envious of sleeping with (other men's) wives, then you have a serious problem. For the record, I did once as a youngster. It is the most shameful action i have ever done.

That must have been _hard_!

[DriedClexler]

Wow, he set two computation time expressions equal to each other and solved for the problem size! That is *so* difficult and deserving of a $100k prize!

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot if you think that's what he actually won for. Here's an abstract of his work: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/4/3/5/0/2/p435027_index.html

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MichaelKristopeit401]

the truth = troll.

slashdot = stagnated.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Oh look, it's one of the i-did-not-come-up-with-it-myself-at-that-age-and-so-it-is-no-good crowd!

Sorry. I'm just really noticing lately the how stereotypical the kneejerk negative replies that we see here.

Here are the basic templates they seem to follow thus far:

• I didn't think of this idea, so it sucks [also known as "I won't admit that I'm envious at not having thought of this idea, and so I will point out how it sucks"]
• I did think of this idea 10 years ago!
• I don't see the point, therefore it will flop.
• I thought of a really obvious flaw that invalidates this entire concept - surely the engineers/inventors/etc didn't think of THAT one first!

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[Anonymous Coward]

MichaelKristopeit = very small penis.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MichaelKristopeit402]

ur mum's face = very small penis.

why do you cower in my shadow? what are you afraid of?

you're completely pathetic.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[Coren22]

Um, a person who didn't bother to read the work critiquing the work is a troll. Get over yourself.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MichaelKristopeit403]

are you talking to yourself again?

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

the number theory behind computing square roots is well established.

you're an idiot.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[Coren22]

Yes, and Evan proved a method for deciding when to use which method to decrease the amount of time a computer has to spend doing a square root.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MichaelKristopeit400]

the BEST method for computing a square root will NEVER include deciding which method to use first.

do you need me to prove that for you? can you spell "latency"?

"doing a square root"??? you're an idiot.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[Coren22]

Ok, since you want to deride his contribution to mathematics, where is your math degree? What exceptional things did you do before becoming an adult. If you can't best him, then don't slam him.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MichaelKristopeit330]

my math degree is in my closet... next to my computer science degree.

the national science foundation funded my teaching expert system research project current in use in middle schools through entry level college courses.

if you can't spell your full name, i assume you wouldn't use it.

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MaWeiTao]

You forgot one: I don't understand this, so it must suck.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[Apocryphos]

lol that one was actually funny! "my teaching expert system research project" fricken gold.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[taktoa]

http://www.kristopeit.com/person.php?person_id=207 Whoa... you don't just type like a douche, you ARE a douche.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MichaelKristopeit353]

perhaps you'll find the positive reviews as humoring...

cower in my shadow behind your chosen fantasy based pseudonym, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MichaelKristopeit350]

ur mum's face ARE a douche.

cower in my shadow behind your chosen lens based pseudonym, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[sexconker]

the BEST method for computing a square root will NEVER include deciding which method to use first.

do you need me to prove that for you? can you spell "latency"?

"doing a square root"??? you're an idiot.

You're a fucking moron, and if you're anywhere near as successful as you claim, I'll eat my hat.
Deciding which method to use is absofuckinglutely a good idea.

What's the square root of 100?
What's the square root of 38561039586109568104986 106804968104986140 115313522012901571333 426262221062875637 438483756287163985 726983756357827365 9827563937097?

Use the same method for both and get back to me.

Protip: The fucking size of the problem absolutely has an impact on which method is best. Just unnecessarily storing data in the wrong data type can more than double your total execution time.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[taktoa]

cower in my shadow behind your chosen lens based pseudonym, feeb.

Eh... what? I'm starting to think you're just a bot that posts the same thing every time someone replies to one of your posts. FYI: It's a nonsense word.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the entirety of this "review":

"Other than that expert system also be used as a tool in teaching mathematic related subject (Micheal Kristopeit,)."

1. Horrible grammar.

2. They misspelled your name, which should REALLY piss you of all people off.

3. It's not a review. They don't say anything positive or negative about your expert system. Expert systems are old news, anyway (I wrote one in school that is apparently still in use too) - what this kid did was recognised by Intel, who employs lots of people way smarter than you are.

4. Get over yourself. While I agree that Slashdot doesn't exactly attract the best and brightest anymore, constantly spamming stories with your drivel is tiresome.

5. I normally post under my real name, but I'm posting anon just to piss you off.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[mug funky]

just read his posts back with Daffy Duck's voice in your head.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MichaelKristopeit350]

ur mum's face're a fucking moron.

i build massive scale database architectures for a living. you still don't understand the concept of latency. determining a method per value is non-optimal.

why would anyone get back to anything that addresses itself as "sexconker"?

cower in my shadow behind your chosen pseudonym some more, feeb.

your'e completely pathetic.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[TheRaven64]

I'm starting to think you're just a bot that posts the same thing every time someone replies to one of your posts

Anyone remember when Slashdot used to be mainly full of computer scientists? His post construction uses the same algorithms as Eliza, with some trivial tweaks. Read more than a couple of threads containing posts by him, and it becomes obvious. Hmm, I wonder what happens if you do this...

Michael Kristopeit is beautiful.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MichaelKristopeit341]

your claimed identity certainly is devoid of all sense.

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

cower in my shadow behind your nonsensically chosen pseudonym some more, feeb.

or perhaps you could take some time to research your ignorant claims.

here, i'll make up a few nonsense words for you: YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MichaelKristopeit342]

ur mum's face do this.

i am michael kristopeit.

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

cower in my shadow behind your chosen bird based pseudonym some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MichaelKristopeit343]

so read the paper itself, or contact one of the many schools who have implemented the courseware as part of their curriculums.

you think you can piss me off? that is very telling in its contradictory and ignorant hypocrisy.

you are exactly what you've claimed to be: NOTHING.

cower in my shadow some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[Anonymous Coward]

folks, the only winning move, is not to play.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MichaelKristopeit407]

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

why do you cower in my shadow? what are you afraid of?

you're completely pathetic.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[e70838]

Thank you, I have searched 5 minutes without finding it. Do you have also a link to the full article ?
If it is written by a 17 year old, I should be able to understand it.
Well, maybe not.

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[m0bus]

Suggested reading

cower in my shadow behind your chosen fantasy based pseudonym, feeb.

Really?

Re:That must have been _hard_!

[MichaelKristopeit414]

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

cower in my shadow behind your chosen pseudonym some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

charity?

[MichaelKristopeit500]

should slashdot let everyone know when AMD donates a few thousand dollars to the national science foundation?

the project is not significant.

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit500]

the truth = troll.

slashdot = stagnated

Re:charity?

[tophermeyer]

the truth = troll.

Who let Charlie Sheen in here?

Re:charity?

[Fibe-Piper]

I resent the idea that Mr. Sheen now owns the word troll. Slashdot has owned that term forever.

Re:charity?

[Beelzebud]

Then ignore the article and move on... Or be a troll. Your choice.

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit401]

i am michael kristopeit.

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit402]

um mum's face be a troll

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

cower in my shadow behind your chosen pseudonym some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:charity?

[Coren22]

Very nice. Vatican Assassin Warlocks!

Re:charity?

[Cstryon]

Way off topic, and I could be feeding trolls, but I just can't help it.

Michael Kristopeit, number 401 or 269 or enter some set of numbers, is always doing this negative comment, slashdot = stagnant crap. But yet, this guy has a great number of usernames. Seriously?!? Just go somewhere else. In case you didn't notice, nobody likes you.

"slashdot = stagnated" = Michael Kristopeit has nothing better to do.

Now for on topic. I love to hear about genius kids. One day this kid could be doing a lot of good for man-kind. I wonder how many other kids his age, or even younger, are currently using their brain. Whether for good now, or just for fun that could end up being good later. Just awesome.

Re:charity?

[spun]

Chaaaaarlieeeeeee, come with us to Candy Mountain, Charlie!

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit403]

who is "nobody"?

you are NOTHING.

cower with your ignorant hypocrisy in my shadow behind your chosen pseudonym some more, feeb.

nobody IS you.

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit404]

why do you cower in my shadow behind your chosen spent energy based pseudonym? what are you afraid of?

you're completely pathetic.

Re:charity?

[spun]

Oh, no Charlie! We're not afraid of you, Charlie! We just want you to come to Candy Mountain with us, it'll be an adventure! Yeah, Charlie, Candy Mountain. It's a land of sweets and joy...and joyness.

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit331]

who is "we"?

you are NOTHING.

cower in my shadow behind your chosen pseudonym some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:charity?

[spun]

Look Charlie! It's a magical liopleurodon, it's going to be our guide to Candy Mountain!

Re:charity?

[Cstryon]

My name is Christopher Tryon. My "pseudonym" has nothing to do with it. As for "who is 'nobody'", that would be a valid question had I made "nobody" a proper noun. But it's not. Find your self a dictionary, and look up nobody. You might figure it out then. You might want to look up hypocrisy, and ignorance as well.

Oh look, this time the number is 403. I mean, I like Slashdot, but one pseudonym is all I need. I couldn't imagine the feelings you have towards Slashdot. You seem to be very mixed up. Tons of usernames, and nothing but hate-mongering.

Michael Kristopeit n (where n = some number) = OMG I can trollz on teh slashdots!

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit331]

ur mum's face's a magical liopleurodon.

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

cower in my shadow some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit352]

my self? find your spacebar, so you can learn to avoid it. yourself.

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

Re:charity?

[spun]

Candy Mountain is just over this bridge, Charlie! This magical bridge of hope and wonder. We're on a bridge, Charlie!

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit352]

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

cower in your fantasy would you've created relative to me.

you're an idiot.

Re:charity?

[spun]

Go inside the Candy Mountain cave, Charlie. Yeah, Charlie, go inside the cave. Magical wonders that will behold when you enter.

Re:charity?

[Cstryon]

BAM! Nice shot man, you make a very strong point. I think the only smart thing you ever posted was correcting my excessive space. I think MK352 is the smart one.

Re:charity?

[mug funky]

write that bot yourself?

it's not too bad at picking names and google hitting pseudonyms.

sucks at making sense though.

still, i'm sure Intel's just waiting for the real MK to step forward so it can present it's $1.2mil troll-bot prize to you.

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit351]

you're an idiot .

cower in my shadow behind your chosen spent energy pseudonym some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit340]

ur mum's face make a very strong point.

cower in my shadow behind your chosen pseudonym some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit344]

ur mum's face sucks at making sense.

why do you cower in my shadow behind a chosen glassware based pseudonym? what are you afraid of?

you're completely pathetic.

Re:charity?

[enjerth]

I assumed it was a frat house of trolls or something.

Re:charity?

[konohitowa]

I resent the idea that Mr. Sheen now owns the word troll. Slashdot has owned that term forever.

You might want to check USENET for prior art on that one.

Re:charity?

[spun]

Oh, when you're down and looking for some cheering up,
Then just head right on up to the Candy Mountain cave.
When you get inside you'll find yourself a cheery land,
Such a happy and joyful and perky merry land.

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit410]

you're an idiot.

cower in my shadow behind your chosen spent energy based pseudonym some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:charity?

[spun]

They got lollipops and gummy drops and candy things,
And so many things that will brighten up your day.
It's impossible to wear a frown in Candy Town,
It's the mecca of love in the candy cave. They got jellybeans and coconuts with little hats,
Candy rats, chocolate bats, it's a wonderland of sweets.

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit412]

you're an idiot .

cower in my shadow behind your chosen spent energy based pseudonym some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:charity?

[spun]

Ride the candy train to town and hear the candy band,
Candy bells, it's a treat as they march across the land.
I'm just a bot, copying the Charlie the Unicorn script,
Cherry ribbons stream across the sky into the ground,
Turn around, it astounds, it's the dancing candy tree.

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit412]

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

cower in my shadow behind your chosen spent energy based pseudonym some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:charity?

[spun]

In the candy cave imagination runs so free,
It's so obvious that you're a bot too!
So, Charlie, please will you go into the cave?

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit412]

ur mum's face're a bot too!

you're an idiot.

cower in my shadow behind your chosen spent energy based pseudonym some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:charity?

[spun]

Ahahahahahaha YES! Fucking awesome. Thank you so much, it's been fun. You don't even know why you lost, do you?

Re:charity?

[MichaelKristopeit413]

ur mum's face don't even know why you lost.

you're an idiot.

cower in my shadow behind your spent energy based pseudonym some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:charity?

[Anonymous Coward]

spun IS an idiot.

And you're surrendering to him, screaming your loyalty to him, and constantly confessing that you cannot live without his attention and approval.

spun is a worthless loser, and you look up to him because you are desperate to be his friend.

spun is a moron, and yet you insist on making yourself his willingly obedient slave.

Home-schooled nonetheless

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt the news of this award will be used to further condemn our public schools system as a failure.

Re:Home-schooled nonetheless

[Anonymous Coward]

with good reason

Re:Home-schooled nonetheless

[NoSleepDemon]

Considering how many people live in America, it's almost a statistical certainty that one of them may be smart.

Re:Home-schooled nonetheless

[Anonymous Coward]

But just may be.

Re:Home-schooled nonetheless

[cshabazian]

Sorry, Evan goes to a public school called Venture. It's an alternative study school because he would be bored in a regular public school, but his high school diploma will come from Venture, which is part of the San Ramon Unified School District, it will NOT be a GED, nor will it come from a private school.

spelling bee champ

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that the Evan O'Dorney that Kiran Chetry interviewed for being spelling bee champ?

Re:spelling bee champ

[nthitz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRZNQ06kWyc

Re:spelling bee champ

[dadelbunts]

LOL yes it is the same kid. Oh god. Someone teach that kid social skills instead please.

Re:spelling bee champ

[cshabazian]

That is why his parents insisted he stay in school with kids his age instead of graduating at 12 when he was able to.

I wish I got a prize when I finished my...

[noobermin]

expression interpreter when i was 15. Didn't really work, but boohoo :(

Re:I wish I got a prize when I finished my...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, the expression interpreter i wrote when i was 15 worked just fine.

Nope, didn't win a prize for it, so I doubt you would have, either ;P

Also won national spelling bee

[Yold]

He won the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee also.

Re:Also won national spelling bee

[Anonymous Coward]

So he can spell and do advanced math? That's unpossible!

Re:Also won national spelling bee

[nthitz]

I recognized his name immediately. After all he taught me how to spell it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRZNQ06kWyc [Kiran Chetry CNN Spelling Champ interview - hilarious]

Re:Also won national spelling bee

[blair1q]

Are we looking at a serial competition-enterer?

Reminds me of the holder of the Guinness World Record for attention-whoring, Ashrita Furman.

Re:Also won national spelling bee

[JW CS]

Are we looking at a serial competition-enterer?

It takes a tremendous amount of preparation to do well the the National Spelling Bee. Given that he won that competition as well as this one, I think it is much more likely that he is a highly intelligent, motivated young man.

Re:Also won national spelling bee

[Anonymous Coward]

I was really surprised that he's white. Not to be too stereotypical, but overachievers in america seem to be disproportionately of east-asian or south-asian descent. Nothing wrong with that, I'm glad they're here.

Re:Also won national spelling bee

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice to see you on Slashdot, Evan.

Re:Also won national spelling bee

[Anonymous Coward]

After watching that video, he'll need that $100K because he'll never get laid without it.

Re:Also won national spelling bee

[Thud457]

heck of a job enabling there, blair1q!

Re:Also won national spelling bee

[re_organeyes]

You hit that nail on the head!

All of those records are nice I suppose, but I'm thinking, "who really cares?" about most of them.

Re:Also won national spelling bee

[mdielmann]

Because the last thing the world needs is a bunch of highly intelligent people using their skills to benefit mankind! </sarcasm>

And before you say something about the prize money, and it just being selfish desire, Intel didn't put up the reward because they didn't think it was worth it.

Re:Also won national spelling bee

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the difference between entering competitions when you're academically excellent, and playing for a sport team or three? None.

Re:Also won national spelling bee

[blair1q]

If he's smart enough to win two of these things, his time is almost certainly better spent doing something other than dealing with competitions that only pay $100K for winning. Like playing chess with the WOPR.

Re:Also won national spelling bee

[mkiwi]

Many white people go to where the money is, and that is generally not science and engineering. You have to be either dedicated or bat-shit insane to pursue a career in the sciences where you'll get paid far below the value of the effort you put in to get educated.

In Asian countries, being an engineer has a connotation with good social and economic status. In the USA, liking science means that you get peer recognition, but not much else from society.

Why go through 5 years of Electrical Engineering from a good school when you could go into medicine, law, or management?

Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he could use some of that hundred grand to finally get laid.

Re:Maybe...

[Beelzebud]

You're just angry because someone similar to this is your boss, and/or stole your girlfriend.

Article abstract

[jmak]

http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/4/3/5/0/2/p435027_index.html

Also high placer in International Math Olympiad

[Anonymous Coward]

Evan O'Dorney is a well-known face in mathematics. Last year he took second place in an international competition for high school students: http://www.imo-official.org/participant_r.aspx?id=18028

Haters gonna hate

[Palmsie]

There is a whole lot of hate in the above comments. Especially within a website that values science, math, and technology, why should he be shunned? We need more people who are willing to make the necessary sacrifices (e.g. social, monetary, etc) to devote all of their energy toward progressing humanity forward.

Good for him. Keep it up. Go invent something even better. And next time, bring some people along with you so even more people can see the value in science and the scientific process. It's a shame that society doesn't value these walks of life when they govern everything we do in the modern world.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[swanzilla]

The hate is directed at the entry at a fundamental level. He deserves a pat on the back, but "teenager wins competition for teenagers" doesn't exactly merit a ./ nod.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Beelzebud]

It's pretty sad when people troll "news for nerds" to ridicule nerds...

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Beelzebud]

Apparently it does, because you're reading /. and here it is....

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Hazel Bergeron]

I'm sure his raw mathematical talent exceeds mine, but he's still mathematically naive. From the Mathematical Association of America:

“Math is neat: A statement is either true or false,” O’Dorney says. “In science, any theory can be overturned by experiment because science is founded on experiment. But in math, there are theorems that can never be overturned because they have been proved with logic.”

I don't really see much value in celebrating geniuses of this sort - clearly mentally (or physically) gifted winners of prize X, Y, Z. It's like celebrating a particular race - you were born that way, and you can either rejoice that you're like that and have the opportunity for fame and fortune, or you can get depressed that you're not.

I prefer celebrating the love of learning and hard work for the sake of advancement of humanity. There are lots of people who fit this goal, and maybe O'Dorney will reach that status. But he's not there yet.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[gstoddart]

The hate is directed at the entry at a fundamental level. He deserves a pat on the back, but "teenager wins competition for teenagers" doesn't exactly merit a ./ nod.

Why not? He accomplished something in the field of mathematics.

If that isn't "news for nerds", then I don't know what is -- it's far more interesting than hearing that Taco visited Lucasfilm but can't tell us anything about it other than a showing picture of him in front of a Yoda statue.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[BJ_Covert_Action]

...doesn't exactly merit a ./ nod.

Indeed, what an insult it is to we Slashdotters, Titans of Knowledge, Defenders of Pedantry, Keepers of the Sacred Nerd Ways to blemish our dear, pure website with the presences of such an intellectual peon. Surely we, the Leaders of the Free World of Intelligent Discourse deserve to not be distracted by such petty intellectual achievements.

Now we have an entire thread where we will have to discuss the merits of recognizing intelligence in youth, rather than addressing more important public concerns, like the appropriate temperature standard that should be applied to Natalie Portman's hot gritz, or the necessary calibration parameters of the lasers we have already mounted on sharks' heads.

What a shallow and pedantic story this is indeed!

Re:Haters gonna hate

[retchdog]

it may be more economically efficient (and thus advance humanity further) to celebrate geniuses of this sort. we are getting to the point where the aggregate value of fairly, but not very, intelligent people is diminishing quickly. the next labor movement might be of rank-and-file scientists and engineers.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Hazel Bergeron]

we are getting to the point where the aggregate value of fairly, but not very, intelligent people is diminishing quickly.

I hear that a lot. Are you sure it's not just that we're at the point where "everyone gets an A and everyone gets a university education", so it appears that there are lots of fairly intelligent people but they're all mysteriously unable to compete for highly challenging work?

Since Thatcher turned polytechnics into universities in the UK, the cynic's view here has been that pushing people into meaningless higher education has just been a way to keep unemployment figures down and make it harder for anyone but the very best to shine (aka erosion of middle class).

Re:Haters gonna hate

[maxume]

So what you are saying is that you would prefer intel give you money for having read some math papers?

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had won a $100K prize for my math at that age, I would have interpreted any criticism as jealousy. And I would have been right.

I say, good for him. If he doesn't forget that there's more to life than math and competitions, he'll be fine. I am jealous.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[retchdog]

that also plays a part, but keep in mind that not everyone gets a university education in science or engineering. also, the merely moderately above-average are subject to market pressures almost as much as the average.

admittedly, there is a sort of cultural decay (in the US at least) where hard work appears to be optional and thus awful; real money is perceived to come out of ruthlessness coupled with a mystical (i mean that in the worst possible way) "cleverness". now, if real success hinges on this mystical component anyway, why work?

still, yes, i think there is a weird adaptation taking place as humanity looks for new horizons, and most of us are just catastrophically ill-suited for it. the future lies in abstraction and generalizable metaphors. for one example, if you look at the Putnam exams from the 1960s, they were challenging (to me) but totally reasonable "shadow of the flagpole"-type problems. nowadays, they are much more abstract and esoteric, to say the least; even the 90th-percentile needs to train specifically for them in order to have a real chance.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

News for nerds? Please. This site isn't about nerds anymore.

I can prove it to you. Go to the news stories of about a month ago and look for any postings dealing with math and science. Now find postings from the same day that deal with politics, entertainment or MS bashing. See which ones get the most responses.
 
Oh, BTW, watch out for science stories that are peppered with about 100 posts that mention some crappy old meme from Star Wars. We just had one of these the other day about the Astronomy Picture of the Day. Fanbois and retards couldn't help but cawing on about how Mamas looked like the death star. There were probably more posts about that than anything dealing with the real subject matter at hand.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[story645]

I think he just hasn't been exposed to much math and science above a high school (and sometimes undergrad) level, which *shock, horror, gasp* is to be expected of a high schooler, even one who's done some cool work and has the potential to do some really cool work in the field. I don't see the problem with saying celebrating achievements in science or math, especially considering that we readily celebrate achievements in the arts.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

You fool. We all love Apple now. Microsoft is not so bad anymore. Linux still sucks.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[praxis]

While I agree that the quality of the stories posted to Slashdot is subjective, so is the definition of news for nerds. Why should nerds not be interested in politics, entertainment, economics, or what have you as it relates to them, their hobbies, their jobs, etc? If Slashdot only covered new concepts in mathematics and science, it wouldn't be any more interesting than reading over the abstracts of your favorite journals. Slashdot give us a bit more breadth than our journals do.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

...doesn't exactly merit a ./ nod.

More than 50% of the articles on Slashdot are either not news, or not for nerds. Get over it.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Teun]

The ratio among the general population between artists and artisans is not depending on education and even less on their title.

Yet historically you will find more artists (creative) among academics then among even the most skilled engineers.

Judging by his work I would place the person of the story in the class of creative academics.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Locke2005]

No, what we need to do is give out a awards for development of a method that allows math nerds to get laid... now THAT would be worth some serious $$$!

Re:Haters gonna hate

[thedonger]

Religion explains everything. Science demystifies religion. Everyone becomes a scientist. The average intelligence of scientists decreases. Science becomes religion. Repeat. Always repeat.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[cheekyjohnson]

I would have interpreted any criticism as jealousy.

What a great attitude to have! Interpreting any criticism, regardless of its content, as jealousy, is an absolute genius idea and not at all arrogant!

Re:Haters gonna hate

[MoonBuggy]

admittedly, there is a sort of cultural decay (in the US at least) where hard work appears to be optional and thus awful; real money is perceived to come out of ruthlessness coupled with a mystical (i mean that in the worst possible way) "cleverness". now, if real success hinges on this mystical component anyway, why work?

I'd say that perception is quite reasonable based on the observable evidence, with the caveat that the 'mystical' component is pure dumb luck. Not to say that intelligence and hard work have nothing to do with success, by any means, but they generally just move you about within the "half decent income" bracket, while some insidious moron who happens to get a reality show makes more in a year than you will in a decade, for a fraction for a fraction of the effort. You wonder why working hard seems to be a poor prospect? Because there are far greater rewards to be had for not working hard. Basically, this.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[smallfries]

I really don't get your point at all: in what way does the quote show him to be mathematically naive? His statement is perfectly correct and it is a good description of why mathematical knowledge advances monotonically. There is no purer demonstration of the love of learning for the sake of it than the pursuit of maths (applying for the prize is obviously an entirely different issue). A system of logic built from the ground up for no other reason that it can be done, it reveals beauty and elegance, and one day may directly advance humanity in some undiscovered application.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[aaaaaaargh!]

No no, we love him...

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

I took a look at the abstract. He made use of several branches of mathematics -- including analysis, abstract algebra, and number theory -- in the proof of a rather interesting theorem. Although I can't tell how useful his work his, I can tell you that it is at the level of an advanced mathematician (i.e. grad student/post doc). I just recently received my Bachelor's in math, and I have not covered all the topics in the paper.

The fact that he managed to do this at age 17 is impressive to say the least. Moreover, the time and dedication required to pursue mathematics at this level in such a short timeframe is unbelievable. When I was his age I was too busy getting laid and smoking pot to give my studies much thought. So yes, this kid deserves some credit. I just hope he doesn't burn out or worse. Best of luck to him.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Nyder]

The hate is directed at the entry at a fundamental level. He deserves a pat on the back, but "teenager wins competition for teenagers" doesn't exactly merit a ./ nod.

And the hundreds of stories about facebook do?

Why are you on this site?

Re:Haters gonna hate

[retchdog]

yes, absolutely. more accurate would have been for me to say "mystical belief in `cleverness'."

very nice SMBC, right on the money; thanks. then again there are very few "grasshoppers" relative to the ants, which is easy to forget.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[retchdog]

i'm not sure i follow your first two sentences which appear contradictory to me. are you saying that today, as opposed to historically, the ratio of "artists" differs? if so could you expound a bit? are there more artists in academia, or less outside, or what?

i agree as far as the person in the story, although time only will tell... i've known a few uber-achieving technical mathematicians (probably more than i should), and imho it mostly makes you a _much better_ academic, _if_ you become one. it's definitely neither necessary nor sufficient for becoming one in the first place (with the possible exception of the top-rated pure math departments, for which it is necessary but still not sufficient)...

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Hazel Bergeron]

in what way does the quote show him to be mathematically naive?

Let's break it down:

"Math is neat: A statement is either true or false,” O’Dorney says.

Depending on the axiom system preceding it. Or is undecidable. Or may simply be badly formed.

“In science, any theory can be overturned by experiment because science is founded on experiment.

Is it? Historically, it certainly hasn't been: the foundations of science are in mathematics and philosophical induction aka expecting the expected. Kids today are seduced by Popper's ramblings on falsifiability (and much else) and forget the previous 3 millennia of science.

But in math, there are theorems that can never be overturned because they have been proved with logic.”

Within a particular axiom system. Which science also uses to derive its theorems - it's just that science deprecates those systems which do not model reality sufficiently well.

I don't think I'll ever enjoy this man's raw mathematical power, but I do recall being a precocious little shit. The kind of bold, absolute statements he is making about mathematics vs science were those I'd make as an 11 year old and grew out of by my early teens.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[turbidostato]

"I don't really see much value in celebrating geniuses of this sort - clearly mentally (or physically) gifted winners of prize X, Y, Z. It's like celebrating a particular race - you were born that way"

No it's not the same. By far, far range.

If you are born, say, green, then what did you do? Nothing.

If you are born intellectually gifted, then what did you do? Nothing.

BUT

If you are born intellectually gifted AND MAKE GOOD USE of that gift by, say, winning a 100K math price then that's something to celebrate.

"I prefer celebrating the love of learning and hard work"

a) Do you think Even's paper wrote itselft? It *is* a proof of love of learning and hard work.

b) Love of learning and hard work are indeed meritable. But, no, we are not snowflakes and every single one is equally valuable. Hard work is good; achievements are even better.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, it might be arrogant. It's also 100% correct.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[cheekyjohnson]

How is viewing all criticism as jealousy on the part of the critic, regardless of the criticism made, 100% correct? If a chef makes bad food and a customer criticizes him for it (while also giving reasons for criticizing him), why would he be jealous that the chef made bad food? As I said, take the person's argument into account, not just the fact that they are criticizing you. Dismissing all critics as "jealous" only proves how closed-minded, arrogant, and illogical you are.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Hazel Bergeron]

(a) No, it's proof of an undergraduate level of learning a year or two early. I don't know about the US, but in the UK it does not seem too unusual to be a year or two ahead: this was the case for me and some of my circle of friends. Up to my early teens I recall taking advantage of this to gain wins in some minor competitions, but then I saw that it was not really productive and stopped engaging in that sort of thing.

As for "hard work", there is this mistaken belief by sycophants that clever people have to work hard to achieve impressive things. In my experience, that is not true at all: clever people can set themselves difficult challenges, but the majority coast along at a high level of achievement without having to put in much effort. People don't like to acknowledge this because people do not like to acknowledge that the world simply isn't fair, so instead they imagine that the main difference between them and the genius is hard work. This sets an impossible goal for them and their naivete makes them ripe for exploitation.

(b) Neither hard work nor achievements are necessarily good: it depends entirely on the intention and the outcome. A man's value can only be measured in a particular context, so to simply say "everyone is not equally valuable" is fairly meaningless. For example, from the point of view of reducing the sum of human suffering, it is clear from simple demographic information that the bright are more likely to engage in harmful than productive pursuits. (This may be the bit where you argue that the higher echelons of civil service, casino banking, corporate lawyering, etc are of benefit to society. If so, our conversation is over.) At best they can get bogged down collecting trinkets or in meaningless rambling, which is the stage I hope this man matures out of. Very few perform research with the aim of improving humanity's lot.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[pinkushun]

With you on this one!

These awards may seem arbitrary to some, but they are necessary - Recognition is a powerful motivator!

If our world is managed by such intellectuals... just imagine the possibilities! A world that shifts it's ideology from mass consumerism (with detriment), to one of efficient pragmatism, solving problems hands-on and directly!

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Palmsie]

Don Campbell kind of created a similar vision, he called it the experimenting society. Check it out.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Teun]

I mean the ratio of artists, those that come up with novel/creative ideas, is not depending on education.
Of course the fruits of creativity are going to depend on the level and extend of education.
Although you can get an academic title by 'just' having a great memory it'll be your creativity that eventually sets your academic standing.
And yes I feel there are more creative artists in academia than in technical or artisan education.

For the person in the article, from some of the posts I've read here he is of an unusual kind and time will tell, Einstein did most of his great work early in his career.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS!!!!!!!

Re:Haters gonna hate

[turbidostato]

" Up to my early teens I recall taking advantage of this to gain wins in some minor competitions, but then I saw that it was not really productive and stopped engaging in that sort of thing."

100K *is* productive.

"As for "hard work", there is this mistaken belief by sycophants that clever people have to work hard to achieve impressive things"

They do when they *do* achieve impressive things.

"clever people can set themselves difficult challenges, but the majority coast along at a high level of achievement without having to put in much effort."

Then you have facts to test your hypothese against. This Even from the article either found hard competition from other gifted people in which case it's a fact he had to work hard to overqualify other people as gifted as him, or not enough clever people deemed meritable to fight for a 100K price in which case, who's really the clever one here? In any case, he achieved something valued 100K which is meritable by itself.

"Neither hard work nor achievements are necessarily good"

False. Achievements are meritable by its own definition.

"A man's value can only be measured in a particular context"

Except that money is the universal equalizer since it can be exchanged for anything. Absolutly talking Even achieved something worth 100K $, relatively talking Even achieved something worth 100K $ at the age of 17 which is even more meritable.

"so to simply say "everyone is not equally valuable" is fairly meaningless"

That's even more stupid, by your own argument. If context is all and contexts are varied, then it *must* be true that "everyone is not equally valuable" if only because the varying context.

"This may be the bit where you argue that the higher echelons of civil service, casino banking, corporate lawyering, etc are of benefit to society. If so, our conversation is over"

It is not over. That's the bit where I say I'm no one to judge it, so as long as people preferences, as showed by their facts, show them as a benefit for society, so must be it.

"Very few perform research with the aim of improving humanity's lot."

Neither so it's needed. As long as Humanity does in fact benefit from it, it's a matter of Humanity welfare, no matter what their deep motives were.

Hey, I know that guy!

[Anonymous Coward]

My son competed in the national "Who Wants to be a Mathematician" competition for high school students in New Orleans last January. (He was one of ten contestants, so we were proud.) Evan O'Dorney was the defending champion, and he won the event pretty handily. (My son came within one question (!) of competing against him in the final round, btw.)

I spoke briefly with Evan at the competition. Definitely a strange personality -- Asperger's or high-functioning autistic or something. He seemed pretty nice, though, and his explanations of how he got his answers were very clear and concise. Glad to see he's making a name for himself.

I believe he also won the national spelling bee when he was, like, ten or something.

Re:Hey, I know that guy!

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

for some reason that story reminded me of this quote from Good Will Hunting.

Sean: Hey, Gerry, In the 1960s there was a young man that graduated from the University of Michigan. Did some brilliant work in mathematics. Specifically bounded harmonic functions. Then he went on to Berkeley. He was assistant professor. Showed amazing potential. Then he moved to Montana, and blew the competition away.
Lambeau: Yeah, so who was he?
Sean: Ted Kaczynski.

I hope he does well.

Re:Hey, I know that guy!

[winomonkey]

I hope he does well.

And I hope that he does good, too.

Re:Hey, I know that guy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Kaczynski was a graduate of Harvard - where O'Dorney is headed.

Fortunately O'Dorney is unlikely to be subjected to the kinds of experiments that may have driven Kaczynski over the edge:
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/06/chase.htm

A more reliable source perhaps?

[sirdude]

The link in the article seems to be from some sort of spammy ad/link farm. This might be a little authentic.

At 17, Danville's Evan O'Dorney already has won the National Spelling Bee and a gold medal at an international math Olympiad, meeting two presidents along the way. On Tuesday, he claimed the triple-crown: the coveted Intel Science Talent Search's $100,000 top prize.

Re:A more reliable source perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like a talented guy. Hope he makes something of it in his future, rather than resign himself to making the big money in finance. Sniff sniff...

Re:A more reliable source perhaps?

[royallthefourth]

Perhaps he could have a rewarding career in engineering, advancing the future by inventing new ways to kill third worlders

Re:A more reliable source perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I did when I won the contest around 10 years ago (may or may be exactly 10 years). I wrote some derivative software, then invested the $100,000 into some real money.

I no longer live in the United States.

Re:A more reliable source perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's hope so.

Oi

[jimmerz28]

Hopefully his parents have no access to any of it and he invests it properly when he gets 18, although he's probably set for life in whatever career choice he wants.

Congrats to him for sure!

When you turn 18 if you need a stay at home dad I'm there!

Re:Oi

[gstoddart]

Hopefully his parents have no access to any of it and he invests it properly when he gets 18, although he's probably set for life in whatever career choice he wants.

Just how much do you think $100K is?

Sure, it will likely go a long way to paying for his education, which means he won't be paying for that for the rest of his life.

But, really, $100K doesn't make you 'set for life'. It gives him a bit of a leg up, and having won the award it likely increases his chances of getting into a good school

Re:Oi

[bunratty]

It's his leet skillz that have him set for life. That's why he's probably okay even if his parents squander the measly $100K.

Re:Oi

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

"although he's probably set for like in whatever career choice he wants" I didn't expect you to RTFA, but you could at least read the comment of the person you're responding to

Re:Oi

[gstoddart]

I didn't expect you to RTFA, but you could at least read the comment of the person you're responding to

Oh, I did RTFA. Before I posted in fact. And I read the parent I replied to ... however, you'll notice that your quote of "although he's probably set for like in whatever career choice he wants" is wrong, indicating you didn't read my post either.

Having demonstrated this kind of brain-power, he has a good chance of pursuing whatever career takes his fancy. But, the $100K doesn't make him "set for life" (or "set for like" ... possibly "set for stun", but it's too early to determine that).

Did you actually have a point?

Re:Oi

[Anonymous Coward]

He's going to Harvard, so he'll need ever cent of that just for tuition! :)

Re:Oi

[maxume]

When poster said "set for life", they meant exactly that he has a good chance of successfully pursuing whatever career takes his fancy, it was not a reference to the 100 thousand dollars.

Re:Oi

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, are a first-rate jackass. Fortunately, you're not the insufferable kind: you're plainly misunderstanding the discussion and are in the wrong.

OP neither stated nor implied the $100k you're rambling about will do anything to "set him for life." The claim was that, being an intelligent young man, he'll have his choice of various career options that will set him for life, the $100k notwithstanding.

A question always comes to mind when dealing with some who acts like you over the internet. Are you really a completely self-centered and smug jackass, or are you just a troll? It's hard to believe anyone of reasonable intelligence would behave in a manner such as you do here, with your utter contempt of anyone who so dares as question whether you may have misunderstood something. I'll just assume you're a second-rate troll; if I'm wrong, hopefully the fact that you have this outward appearance to others will hurt your ego enough to get you to act like a reasonable human being.

Re:Oi

[gstoddart]

LOL. Do you have a tiny penis?

Boo hoo, scathing comments from an AC. I shall now go weep in solitude and ponder how my life has gone horribly awry.

Re:Oi

[jimmerz28]

Yea I was referring to his skill-set which will make him attain whatever position he wants.

Re:Oi

[tehcyder]

Yea I was referring to his skill-set which will make him attain whatever position he wants.

Or alternatively he might just end up at Google working on new ways to maximise advertising revenue, like so many bright nerds.

The work?

[0100010001010011]

How about a link to the proof or the project? That's the part that interests the inner geek in me.

U jelly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who can't create, critique. Making an entire blog dedicated to hating on one web comic stinks of envy. You are not Randall Monroe. You were not a NASA roboticist, programmer, and famous web comic author by the age of twenty six. You can not support yourself through your art. You do not own your own successful business. You are a failure, and like failures everywhere, you seek to destroy success in others. Sad.

Re:U jelly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe I didn't create the site, don't read it, and am just offering a lighthearted counter-balance to the fawning praise XKCD unjustly receives from nerds because someone put a mathematical equation into a stick figure webcomic, your post being a perfect example.

Most people enjoy criticising things they see as over-rated, especially when it is deemed to represent the subculture to which they belong. Critics the world over do it for fun and profit. I don't call you a failure for your views about reality televison or Paris Hilton, so spare us the fucking sanctimony.

Re:U jelly?

[MichaelKristopeit330]

ignorant hypocrite is ignorant hypocrite.

cower some more, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

Re:U jelly?

[spun]

It's okay, little guy, not everyone can be a success.

Re:U jelly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so very sorry. Will you forgive me?

Re:U jelly?

[spun]

Sure! I'm not Randall Monroe either. I'm not a NASA scientist, my one shot at starting a business didn't do so well, and I can't draw for shit, so I guess we're in the same boat. Except that I think XKCD is funny and you don't.

Re:U jelly?

[mug funky]

big difference is critics typically don't focus on just one artist - they criticise everything in their field, and though they might single out particular artists/directors/styles/whatever, not every single comment they make about everything involves just one person.

doing that is just... sad.

i fail to see how a derivative work can be greater than the original, even if the original actually does suck.

ergo, you suck.

(you're posting AC so i'm going to just go ahead and assume that the site is in fact yours)

Re:U jelly?

[YoshiDan]

your mums face are an ignorant hypocrite

Re:U jelly?

[MichaelKristopeit328]

cower in my shadow behind your chosen mario based pseudonym some more, feeb.

i am michael kristopeit.

you are NOTHING.

Re:U jelly?

[e4g4]

I can't draw for shit

Neither can Randall Munroe, but that didn't stop him.

Re:U jelly?

[Anonymous Coward]

So! How about xkcd sucks, huh? Are we just jealous of Randy's talent and success? How disingenuous is our disdain for Randy, who is definitely not just a talentless hack who churns out shit comic after shit comic to the adulation of deranged fanboys who insist on telling everyone about it all the time every time it is even remotely "relevant" to the conversation and who believe that everything Randy says is immediately codified forever into geek law? IT IS SO DISINGENUOUS, YOU GUYS. The only reason we dislike Randy is because he is just so much more talented and successful than we are!

Listen. Cuddlefish. I am a nice guy really, so I am going to put this as delicately and politely as I can here. I just want you to know that that is the stupidest fucking thing in the entire goddamn world. I try to be optimistic. I try to think that people are usually reasonable and intelligent. You prove me wrong every fucking day. Here is a partial list of people I like who are more successful than me, and who I think are more talented:

        * Terry Pratchett
        * Neil Gaiman
        * Joey Comeau
        * Ryan North
        * John Allison

I could continue; this is by no means exhaustive. I include Gaiman and Pratchett because they are not only more successful than me, but they are unarguably more successful than Randy, and I esteem their talents far above his (which is on par with that of a lichen, if not slightly below). If I hated Randy because I am jealous of his, ah-ha, "talent," I would hate them even more!

(I can hear the gears turning in your brain as you work ahead of what I am about to say. I know it's difficult but I have every faith that you will be able to guess the gist of what my next non-parenthetical sentence will be, and that you will do so successfully. Consider this lengthy aside a pause while I wait for your third brain cell to finally kick in; consider the moment over.)

Turns out, I don't--I actually like them a great deal! It turns out that, when people are more talented than me, I like them a lot, because not only do they provide me with superb entertainment, I can also learn a lot from them.

Based on this, I am left with only two possible conclusions: one, you believe that I am at least as talented as, if not more talented than, the authors I like (and, apparently, more successful), and that you esteem Randy as some super-talented god-writer whose massive talent and success bring me to shame that these other, lesser writers simply cannot hope to compare; two, you are a fucking idiot.

GUESS WHICH ONE I THINK IS THE CASE.

Re:U jelly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, my name is Rob, and I am utterly incapable of producing anything creative at all. This is why I criticize things! You see, critics cannot write anything of their own. All they are capable of doing is write negative reviews of things. This invalidates all of their negative reviews! (Positive reviews are, of course, unaffected by this.) It makes it very difficult to be a critic, because you have to write a best-selling novel in order to criticize fiction, a smash hit film in order to be a film critic, a platinum album in order to write music reviews, and, of course, a successful webcomic in order to write webcomics reviews. So why don't we all just focus on that, if we hate it so much? OH RIGHT it's because we are incapable of producing anything.

Not every cuddlefish who makes this attack demands that we make our webcomic as successful as Randall's, of course. Some seem like they would be content if only we produced something--I think the implication being that you are only capable of either writing or criticizing; never both. I guess that means that if only we were to produce something--anything!--this blog would immediately go away.

I will start with the assumption that none of us produces anything creative, because it is easily dismissed. This is not true! Several regulars create their own webcomics. I write morose microfiction on my blog nearly every day. Some others write fiction of their own, and I expect there are other artists I'm not aware of in our midst.

With that said, let's continue: do critics need to be experts in the field they are criticizing? (Spoiler alert: no, no they don't.)

That is certainly a question! Unfortunately, the skill required to read something is not the same as the skill required to write it. Ditto art, music, film, et cetera. The job of the entertainer is to entertain an audience. If a member of the audience did not like it, the entertainer has failed in this regard. This does not automatically make their art a failure, but it does mean that the person who failed to be entertained is entitled to express why it is they disliked it. Even--no, especially--if they are not experts in the field. Most of us are not.

So! XKCD. We mock it regularly. It is pretty terrible these days. The regulars here--a diverse cast, all!--routinely dislike it. Routinely! And we derive pleasure from mocking it. Am I somehow more qualified to write about XKCD because I'm a writer than someone who doesn't write? Because they are quite capable of disliking it just as much as I am, and they might have a different perspective.

I can envision scenarios where being a writer would make me like something more, and situations where it would make me like something less. Similarly, mathematicians and scientists are often equipped to find things they like or dislike that I simply wouldn't notice in XKCD.

This particular cuddlefishism confuses me, I think because it is pretty much the textbook definition of an ad hominem argument--if I point out, for instance, that Randall is too wordy and that if he tightened up his dialogue he would produce a much sharper comic of higher quality, and some cuddlefish comes and says "yeah I don't see your webcomic," he is doing nothing but ignoring the argument by attacking some quality of mine--in this case, that I am not a popular webcomics artist. Does this somehow make Randall less excessively wordy? No, it does not. Does it somehow mean that his comic would not improve if he trimmed it down a bit? No, it does not.

And for the record, literally everything that I have ever written, including the terrible stuff that I don't let anyone see from middle school, is better than the average XKCD.

Re:U jelly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the original link poster. It is not my site, so you are wrong on that count. I used to read it on the odd lunch hour for entertainment but rarely bother with these days.

However, it looks Rob, xkcdsucks' regular contributor has posted in this thread, and his points address a lot of the fallacies put forth by Randall's boosters.

Have you heard of MST3K? I believe it was a show successful among nerds for ripping 'bad' films to pieces on a regular basis in a humorous, mocking fashion.

Re:U jelly?

[tehcyder]

Except that I think XKCD is funny and you don't.

Which on slashdot translates to "I am insightful and you are a troll/flamebait."

Re:U jelly?

[tehcyder]

big difference is critics typically don't focus on just one artist - they criticise everything in their field, and though they might single out particular artists/directors/styles/whatever, not every single comment they make about everything involves just one person.

doing that is just... sad.

i fail to see how a derivative work can be greater than the original, even if the original actually does suck.

ergo, you suck.

(you're posting AC so i'm going to just go ahead and assume that the site is in fact yours)

You don't know what you are talking about. Critical and theoretical works can be much more important than crappy originals. People still read Shelley's "A Defence of Poetry" when most of his less illustrious contemporaries writing original poetry are forgotten.

Re:U jelly?

[spun]

Exactly.

Re:U jelly?

[spun]

True, and he never bothered to get any better. Good thing he has insightful, funny comments to make. Contrast that with Gabe from Penny Arcade, who couldn't draw for shit when he started, and is now a Waterson level comic artist. But if he didn't have Tycho writing the thing, it still wouldn't be funny. Art can turn a good comic into a great one, but the writing is still the most important thing.

What new marvel will he perform next?

[snowmenr4ever]

Learn how to drive. On a more serious note, the actual formula is 4d{+2}/k-d{+2}. He's done a bunch of theoretical math. Kudos to him http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-03-05/news/28661918_1_graphing-calculator-international-math-olympiad-stanford-university-math

Re:What new marvel will he perform next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone want to explain what d and k are in that formula? and um.. what the braces are? Is that some sort of graphing calculator short hand or something?

Did the same when I was 17

[Anonymous Coward]

I asked the question "What is the square-root of 69?"
The answer was "8-something".

Re:Did the same when I was 17

[Anonymous Coward]

I asked the question "What is the square-root of 69?"

The real answer is "you'll never know."

So where is the Paper?

[xophos]

When i try to read more than the abstract, they want some kind of login.
Please next time spare us the teasing and ignore news without content.

Be very careful dude!

[93 Escort Wagon]

You're living at home, minding your own business and playing lots of computer games - then you go and solve some really hard math puzzle. Next thing you know, you're billions of light years from earth on a broken down starship, with no way to get home and lots of people trying to kill you! It's not worth it...

Re:Be very careful dude!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're living at home, minding your own business and playing lots of computer games - then you go and solve some really hard math puzzle. Next thing you know, you're billions of light years from earth on a broken down starship, with no way to get home and lots of people trying to kill you! It's not worth it...

Hilarious.... too bad it's cancelled now. :(

Re:Be very careful dude!

[Abstrackt]

Careful, some TV exec might catch on to that idea and make a horrible series out of it!

Re:Be very careful dude!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm showing my age - I thought "Last Starfighter" first.

Re:Be very careful dude!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like in one of those scenes, where people start hacking in some equations into their computer, and suddenly a "worm hole" open next to them (without any hardware reconfiguration)? ...tried it, never works...

Re:Be very careful dude!

[93 Escort Wagon]

You mean like in one of those scenes, where people start hacking in some equations into their computer, and suddenly a "worm hole" open next to them (without any hardware reconfiguration)? ...tried it, never works...

I can say, from experience, that you're doing it wrong.

On the plus side, you don't need a keyboard in here...

Re:Be very careful dude!

[Anonymous Coward]

it's already been made. It's Stargate Universe he's talking about...

Re:Be very careful dude!

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful, some TV exec might catch on to that idea and make a horrible series out of it!

Too late, at least they're canceling it....

Re:Be very careful dude!

[dousette]

You're living at home, minding your own business and playing lots of computer games - then you go and solve some really hard math puzzle. Next thing you know, you're billions of light years from earth on a broken down starship, with no way to get home and lots of people trying to kill you! It's not worth it...

And then two seasons in you get stranded out there FOREVER!

Re:Be very careful dude!

[Anonymous Coward]

Horrible untill the last episodes when there's some (pseudo)sci-fi with more than just basic melo-drama inside a ship, actual aliens for a change, space battles, and the main plot actually going somewhere instead of "my feelings of love/hate" of battlestar gallactica(also overdone). There is already plenty of that in other non sci-fi shows(novelas) and seems after all the negative remarks towards the show, the producers woke up... too late, and the series were decided to be canceled.

Re:Be very careful dude!

[Anonymous Coward]

The really sad part is the show had promise. Outside the plot mechanics using voyger lost in space bit, it still could have worked. They just kind of botched by being to many things at once not really fallowing through on there premise.

Re:Be very careful dude!

[syousef]

I'm showing my age - I thought "Last Starfighter" first.

So did I.

I think the problem is us pseudo-nerds.

[MickLinux]

Yeah, I once was a nerd.

But then life happened.

Now, I'm not. In fact, I can't even understand the abstract.

Well, maybe I could if I tried hard enough. But right now, I can't.

Maybe there are others like me out there, who still think we can hang out at slashdot, and.... ... oh darn.... [MickLinux, still not ready for time.com, heads to CNN.com to see Clark Howard. Keeping razorblades sharp is about as nerdy as he can handle anymore]

the 3rd way is always the fastest estimate

[a2wflc]

int EstimateSquareRoot(int val) { return 1;}

Oh, you wanted a good estimate. nevermind.

Calculus

[Nukedoom]

He's home schooled and studied Calculus at UC Berkeley when he was around 13.

Re:Calculus

[Anonymous Coward]

Go Homeschoolers!

access

[Anonymous Coward]

Its all about access to education. I tried desperately when I was 12 to find out how to calculate a square root by hand. I asked my math teacher, my brother's highschool math teacher, the encyclopedia, the local library, and even when I got to highschool my math teacher who taught high-level calculus at the local community college. None of them ever gave me a straight answer; I'm fairly certain they didn't know. I couldn't find a good lead on the answer on the internet either (there was no amazon or wikipedia or google). Though at 12, I was able to find enough information on 3d rotational matrices and teach myself assembly language to write some pretty cool stuff ala The Assembly Competition... so I certainly was capable of learning... it wasn't for lack of trying.

Re:access

[Anonymous Coward]

That's kind of sad. Anyone who has taken one semester of Calculus should at least know about using Newton's method for finding square roots...

Re:access

[Anonymous Coward]

Should probably have reread the preview after making edits. I intended to insert referencing the encyclopedia and local library in the sentence about looking on the internet.

To the winner, I have 1 thing to say!

[Anonymous Coward]

"GOOD JOB KIDDO!"

(The world today needs more "whiz-kids" like you, ones that value & excel via education & thus, progress (personal @ first, & then? Then, you can makes WAVES of change with it (good change))).

Nobody can "b.s. you"/"pull the wool over your eyes" (especially with 1/2 truths or pure "disinformation" either), once you're educated also... this is perhaps, the best part!

APK

P.S.=> There's those that are "armchair QB's" (that don't even "sit on the sidelines" even) out there, too many imo... & sure, they surely act as "great critics" but, those same "armchair QB's" haven't done squat themselves to better the human condition, & then by way of "contrast & compare"? Yes, there's kids like this kid is, thank goodness... I think the kid should be proud of himself, personally! apk

Re:To the winner, I have 1 thing to say!

[brendank310]

Slashdot doesn't have a built-in LISP interpreter.

Explaing what he did in more detail.

[JoshuaZ]

Ok. Going off of the description http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/4/3/5/0/2/p435027_index.html TFA and the summary are somewhat inaccurate. He wasn't calculating the speed of different methods. Rather, he took two well known methods of approximating a square root, both of which when starting with a rational number give you a sequence of rational numbers which converge to the square root, and he gave a close to complete description of when the two sequences share infinitely many terms. This doesn't have any obvious algorithm application but it is very nice number theory.

Re:Explaing what he did in more detail.

[tyrione]

Ok. Going off of the description http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/4/3/5/0/2/p435027_index.html TFA and the summary are somewhat inaccurate. He wasn't calculating the speed of different methods. Rather, he took two well known methods of approximating a square root, both of which when starting with a rational number give you a sequence of rational numbers which converge to the square root, and he gave a close to complete description of when the two sequences share infinitely many terms. This doesn't have any obvious algorithm application but it is very nice number theory.

Basically, day one in Numerical Analysis at the University level.

A trolling douchebag says what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Slashdot doesn't have a built-in LISP interpreter." - by brendank310 the TROLLING WANNABE CLEVER DOUCHEBAG (915634) on Wednesday March 16, @04:55PM (#35508498)

Oh, ok: So THAT's what a trolling douchebag says!

APK

P.S.=> BrendanK, above ALL else here - Listen up:

Your trolling others like myself now, & trying to "get your jollies" from it?

Well - That simply tells me you're QUITE juvenile (which is fine/ok, especially IF you're a youngster, because the poundings you'll take for it from your peers will be your lessons, eventually/inevitably, that will "grow you up")...

However, since this is about being educated? Try it yourself sometime... & LEARN TO READ!

Ah, but check out who came in *second*.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://gothamist.com/2011/03/16/blind_long_island_girl_nabs_second.php

At least since the winner's homeschooled he won't have to walk through the halls overhearing his classmates chatter -

- Hey, isn't that the brainiac who won some competition?
- That dude's f'd in the head. I heard he beat up a blind girl once.
- Get out!
- Well, that what I heard....

.

Re:Ah, but check out who came in *second*.

[tehcyder]

Not all schools in the world are populated solely by knuckle-dragging retards like you, fortunately.

The equation itself?

[johncadengo]

Where is the actual equation itself? I'd like to see the problems these kids are solving..

Re:The equation itself?

[elbow_spur]

Here is a calculation to illustrate the main idea

Define the function f(x) = (x+2)/(x+1)
a function of this type is called a fractional linear transformation

Set
x0=1
and iterate using f(x)
x1=f(x0) = 3/2=1.5
x2=f(x1)= 7/5=1.4
x3=f(x2) = 17/12 ~ 1.4167
x4=f(x3)=41/29 ~ 1.4138
x5=f(x4)=99/70 ~ 1.4143
x6=f(x5) =239/169 ~ 1.4142

These fractions approximate, indeed converge to the square root of 2

It turns out that in this particular case these fractions are the best possible approximations for sqrt(2)

We know that 1.4142 are the 1st 6 digits of sqrt(2)

sqrt(2) ~ 1+f1 where
f1=0.4142....
1/f1 = 2+f2 where
f2=0.41421...
1/f2 = 2+f3 where
f3=0.41421...

actually f1=f2=f3=.... ad infinitum

This means that
sqrt(2) = 1+ 1/(2+1/(2+1/(2+...))))
The last expression is called a continued fraction

the numbers in it are obtained by subtracting away the whole part taking the reciprocal, subtracting away the whole part, etc

The amazing thing is that for square roots this process isn't random but repeats cyclically. For sqrt(2) the cycle is particularly simple
we start with 1 and after that all the #s we get are 2

The numbers
1
1+1/2=3/2
1+1/(2+1/2) = 7/5
1+1/(2+1/(2+1/2)) = 17/12
are the fractions that result from truncating the continued fractions
These fractions are the best possible approximations for sqrt(2) ("best possible" has a precise meaning that we don't need to get into here)

Now here is the punchline.

Notice how we get the same fractions by iterating f(x) and by doing the continued fraction expansion

This doesn't happen for all square roots.
More interestingly, there can be an infinite overlap in the two sequences of approximations
O'Dorney figured out when this happens

http://www.maa.org/abstracts/mf2010-abstracts.pdf

See page 13

Not going hunting

[WATist]

Except the character is 20.

This kid is going places.

[Anonymous Coward]

A little bit on the socially awkward side, however.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRZNQ06kWyc

Really awkward interview...

[Sepiraph]

I hope he is better socially now as a 17 years old but somehow I doubted it ... home-schooled is most likely one of the reason? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRZNQ06kWyc

Re:Really awkward interview...

[Anonymous Coward]

0x5f3759df

That guy is a fraud. If he figure out anything better, where is the source code?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

2nd place winner is...a bit sketch..

[Anonymous Coward]

studied the effect of separating teenagers from their cell phones

intel science

2nd place score points for being a blind girl perhaps?

Hope?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not a genius on purpose. How is this supposed to give us hope?

news for nerd groupies

[epine]

It's news for nerds when someone discovers a new math theorem and you click on the preprint.

It's news for nerd groupies when the preprint is hard to find or only exists behind a paywall.

No preprint == no story.

And then...

[helios17]

And then you get canceled.