newjerseynewsroom.com

BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Did you ever wonder what you would do with a lot of the things you learned in school? A physicist at the University of California in San Diego has used his knowledge to save $400 on a traffic ticket.

That four-page paper you had to turn in for your final grade? Dmirti Krioukov brought his to court, and it explained to a judge how the ticket he was issued defied the laws of physics.

Krioukov explained, according to NBC San Diego, “What the officer saw would be easily confused by the angle of speed of this hypothetical object that did not stop at the stop sign. Therefore, what he saw did not properly reflect reality, which was completely different."

He said it took a perfect combination of events to make his theory work. According to Physics Central, when Krioukov was approaching the stop sign, the officer was checking Krioukov's angular velocity instead of his linear velocity.

The police car was about 100 feet away from a perpendicular intersection with a stop sign. So a car that is approaching the intersection with constant linear velocity will rapidly increase in angular velocity from the eyes of the officer.

Krioukov concluded that if a car moves toward the stop sign with constant velocity but brakes quickly before getting to the sign, the angular velocity increases rapidly before stopping momentarily. But I’ll bet you already knew that.

The judge found Krioukov innocent and spared him the $400 fine. Reuters reported that he published his paper, which was titled The Proof of Innocence, earning, oddly enough, $400. The report can be found here.

Krioukov says he welcomes arguments against his theory.