Ballistic breakthrough

Shooters may benefit from the brains of an Indian teenager whose mathematical prowess has cracked one of the great puzzles of ballistic flight.

Shouryya Ray, 16, has singlehandedly solved the problem of calculating the trajectory of an object launched through the air, factoring in gravity and wind resistance.

Sir Isaac Newton was the first man to work on the problem, which has baffled mathematicians, scientists and computer programmers for about 350 years and was considered unsolvable.

Modern ballistics programs approximate flight paths but their plots were not based on the exact maths needed to calculate the effects of air resistance and so on.

Ray, who had already been hailed as a genius before coming up with his equations, said he set out to find the solution after being told by a teacher that there was no answer. He put it down to “curiosity and schoolboy naivety”.

Shouryya’s equations are expected to help ballisticians be more accurate in their predictions and may enable bullet makers to refine their products for better performance.

An apparently humble young man, he said he loved the beauty of maths but added he wished he was better at football.

Mick Matheson

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Mick grew up with guns and journalism, and has included both in his career. A life-long hunter, he has long-distant military experience and holds licence categories A, B and H. In the glory days of print media, he edited six national magazines in total, and has written about, photographed and filmed firearms and hunting for more than 15 years.