Hungarian scientific discovery makes waves

By: All Hungary News

For the first time since 1979, a Hungarian scientific discovery is featured on the front page of the respected international journal Mathematical Intelligencer. Twenty-eight years after a Rubik's Cube appeared on the cover, Hungarian mathematicians have solved a geometric theorem produced by a man considered by many to be the greatest living mathematician, Russian V. I. Arnold.

 

"Arnold's conjecture" is that bodies with less than four balance positions, or equilibria, might exist. Hungarian scientists Péter Várkonyi and Gábor Domokos have discovered homogenous objects with only one stable and one unstable position. In their paper, they write that such forms appear in nature due to their special mechanical properties. Their research helps to explain the shape of tortoise shells, in particular, the distinctive Indian Star Tortoise.

 

Várkonyi was a silver medalist at the 1997 Student Olympics in Physics, while Domokos is the youngest member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. They both teach at the Department of Architecture at the Budapest Technical University. Domokos has been a visiting scholar at the universities of Maryland and Cornell. Várkonyi is currently a post-doctorate scholar at the University of Princeton.

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