A Passion For Physics

BY JOE SCOTCHIE
jscotchie@antonmediagroup.com
Since the Roslyn area has produced its share of academics, having local residents getting published in scholarly reviews is not unusual. But that mostly includes authors already established in their fields. What’s extremely rare is a high school student being published in such a journal. Joshua Richter, a rising senior at Roslyn High School has discovered a passion for physics. According to his parents, that includes the subject of relativity and black holes. And that passion has translated into a paper, “On The Thermodynamics of Black Holes in Special Relativity” being published in the September 2016 issue of The International Journal of Science and Technology.
The paper, according to Joshua’s father, Eric, started as an independent study on a mathematical inversion of special relativity. Eric Richter forwarded it to a friend, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who declared that it was good enough to get published. And that is what has happened.
The paper’s abstract is as follows: “A black hole is defined as an object with an escape velocity of the speed of light. There is one common circumstance in which a black hole is typically formed. This is after the death of a star. After the star can no longer support its mass via nuclear fusion, it begins to collapse in on itself. This results in a large amount of mass being compressed into a tiny volume. However, I propose an alternative method for black hole creation. In this paper, a relativistic black hole is defined as an apparent black hole caused by the effects of special relativity. When Lorentz contraction and mass dilation are applied, not only do black holes appear to be formed, but Hawking Radiation also appears to be affected.”
After taking the reader through a series of equations, the paper concludes that such equations “shows how the thermodynamic properties of a black hole are altered by it being created by relativistic means, even if the masses are equivalent.”
Since the subject is relativity, it is not surprising that one of the references is to a 1905 paper by the young Albert Einstein entitled, “On The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.” A 2014 book, Dynamics and Relativity is also cited as a reference.
Echoing her husband’s sentiments, Lori Richter added that her son’s interests come from independent study and just a passion for physics, one that he has “taught to himself.” Lori Richter said Joshua took physics as a subject at Roslyn High School in his junior year, with an interest in relativity and black holes also growing from that class. At Roslyn High School, Joshua is a member of the Astronomy Club, the Math Club and the tennis squad.
The International Journal of Science and Technology is a Great Britain-based publication that advertises itself as an “international premier peer reviewed open access science and technology journal promoting the discovery, innovation, advancement and dissemination of basic and transitional knowledge in science, technology and related disciplines,” adding that it aims to be “the world’s most dominant and extensively read science and technology journal. Our mission is to lead the debate on science and technology engage, inform, and inspire researchers and professionals in order to streamline economic and broad-spectrum benefits of science and technology. We aim to revolutionize industry by promoting legitimate and effective research.”
A lofty goal indeed and a Roslyn High School student is assisting them in doing just that.