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MIT Mathematician confirms: Israeli 10th-grader discovers new geometric theorem

israelhayom.com

51–60 of 68 posts

Re: MIT Mathematician confirms: Israeli 10th-grader discovers new geometric theorem

#51
post #39
post #29

Until someone brings a link from MIT's website, I'm calling bullshit on this one. This sounds like what pops up every other day in Egyptian newspapers about genius Egyptian kids who invent this or that. The theorem stated in the article is not a theorem at all. It's a direct consequence of the definition of a circle and is perfectly obvious to anyone who spends two minutes pondering the implications of that definitio…

A circle is defined as all the points in the same distance from a certain center point. But a point thats distanced from the circle circumference by R isn't necessarily the circles center. But if you can draw 3 (and hence more) lines from a point to the circles circumference that are all the same lenght, that is the circles center, and the distance is the radius.

>A circle is defined as all the points in the same distance from a certain center point.

I think they also need to be on the same plane, otherwise it's a hollow sphere.

Also, by that definition, there's an infinity of centers. There can be a line that passes through the center and perpendicular to the plane on which the circle lies. Every point of that line is equally distant from the points of the circle.

And for an infinity of planes parallel to our plane of interest, the intersection of the line and that plane gives the center of the projection of our first circle onto that new plane.

Re: MIT Mathematician confirms: Israeli 10th-grader discovers new geometric theorem

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually used this idea once. I had three known points which were approximately equidistant from an unknown center. I wanted to find the center. So I used a hillclimbing algorithm to search for the center by guessing points and seeing how close they were. The fitness function was the difference between the proposed center and the three points. The idea being to minimize the distance between their. If the lines were…

> I had three known points which were approximately equidistant from an unknown center. I wanted to find the center. See this: http://www.mathopenref.com/const3pointcircle.html

That looks like it would be quite difficult to program.

Re: MIT Mathematician confirms: Israeli 10th-grader discovers new geometric theorem

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had three known points which were approximately equidistant from an unknown center. I wanted to find the center. See this: http://www.mathopenref.com/const3pointcircle.html

That looks like it would be quite difficult to program.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumscribed_circle#Circumcen...

Re: MIT Mathematician confirms: Israeli 10th-grader discovers new geometric theorem

#55
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A circle is defined as all the points in the same distance from a certain center point. But a point thats distanced from the circle circumference by R isn't necessarily the circles center. But if you can draw 3 (and hence more) lines from a point to the circles circumference that are all the same lenght, that is the circles center, and the distance is the radius.

>A circle is defined as all the points in the same distance from a certain center point. I think they also need to be on the same plane, otherwise it's a hollow sphere. Also, by that definition, there's an infinity of centers. There can be a line that passes through the center and perpendicular to the plane on which the circle lies. Every point of that line is equally distant from the points of the circle. And for an…

Of course were limiting this to a 2d plane.

Re: MIT Mathematician confirms: Israeli 10th-grader discovers new geometric theorem

#56
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A circle is defined as all the points in the same distance from a certain center point. I think they also need to be on the same plane, otherwise it's a hollow sphere. Also, by that definition, there's an infinity of centers. There can be a line that passes through the center and perpendicular to the plane on which the circle lies. Every point of that line is equally distant from the points of the circle. And for an…

Of course were limiting this to a 2d plane.

I believe a plane is two-dimensional by definition. But I get where you're going. Isn't geometry fun!

Re: MIT Mathematician confirms: Israeli 10th-grader discovers new geometric theorem

#57
post #7

From the article: > According to the new "Three Radii Theorem," if three or more lines extend from a single point to the edge of a circle, then the point is the center of the circle and the straight lines are the radii. Shouldn't that be "three or more lines of equal length ", and "to different points on the edge of a circle"? Or am I missing something?

The theorem as stated in the article is definitely wrong. Equal length would make it correct, I think.

The lines being tangent to the circle would also work.

Re: MIT Mathematician confirms: Israeli 10th-grader discovers new geometric theorem

#58

Some Hebrew reports say that story has been exaggerated by the media. She proved a theorem from Euclid Elements in a different way than Euclid. https://www.facebook.com/MadaGB/photos/a.144320005726807.327...

Thank you. That makes a lot more sense.

Re: MIT Mathematician confirms: Israeli 10th-grader discovers new geometric theorem

#59
post #35

I never know what these 'grade' designations mean. Anyway, it appears to refer to 15 to 16-year-olds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_grade

In Israel, first grade is for 6 year olds, getting out of kindergarten and into elementry school, so if you want grade to age conversion just add 6, ie 10th grade = 16 yo

Re: MIT Mathematician confirms: Israeli 10th-grader discovers new geometric theorem

#60
post #25
post #19

Kudos to the teacher who helped her develop her idea instead of scolding her for using ideas that weren't being taught in his classroom.

How common is that?

I happen to be in 10th grade in the USA and really love math - and using it to solve applied problems - but the math taught in school is formulaic and mechanical. We aren't encouraged when we start asking questions not covered by the curriculum or congratulated when we answer them ourselves.

It would be really nice if we had more teachers like the one in this article. I'm sure many more articles would be written then.

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