Cranium Champ...

WASHINGTON - A 16-year-old California boy won a premier high school science competition Monday for his innovative approach to an old math problem that could help in the design of airplane wings.
Michael Viscardi, a senior from San Diego, won a $100,000 college scholarship, the top individual prize in the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology.
Viscardi said he's been homeschooled since fifth grade, although he does take math classes at the University of California at San Diego three days a week. His father is a software engineer and his mother, who stays at home, has a Ph.D. in neuroscience, he said.
"It's unbelievable," Viscardi said of his win. "It's so incredible that I'm in shock right now."
Viscardi tackled a 19th century math problem known as the Dirichlet problem, formulated by the mathematician Lejeune Dirichlet. The theorem Viscardi created to solve it has potential applications in the fields of engineering and physics, including airplane wing design. He said he worked on it for about six months with a professor at UCSD.
(By JUAN-CARLOS RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer )

Hmm... sounds like little Mikey might have had some help from mommy & daddy. Seriously, there's a $100K prize at stake! That will help out with the college tuition to M.I.T. for sure.

Remember the science projects you did when you were a kid?
1) Does placing a plant next to a TV affect its growth?
2) Do human vitamins affect plant growth?

You know what I'm talking about... those last minute projects where you were rummaging through the garage for a cardboard box, sticking some construction paper to it, drawing some simpleton color graphs (growth of plant vs. distance to TV screen), and basically plagarizing your World Book Encyclopedia for some science facts on plant growth. Then as soon as the science fair is over, you chuck that thing into the school dumpster.

Dirichlet problem? Sounds like a bad plumbing situation to me.
I shouldn't laugh though. Who knows, this kid might be the next Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Either that or I'll be working for him someday.