Physicist avoids 400 dollars traffic ticket with mathematical paper

Washington, Apr 17 (ANI): A US physicist came up with a rather calculative method to prove his innocence and get himself out of a traffic ticket.

Dmitri Krioukov, a physicist at the University of California, San Diego, was pulled over for running a stop sign. The fine would have been 400 dollars.

However, Krioukov tried something that most traffic courts perhaps haven't seen: He wrote an academic paper to argue why he ought to be found not guilty. Its title: "The Proof of Innocence."

The judge bought it, said Krioukov. He was acquitted, ABC News reported.

Krioukov posted his paper online with a subtitle, "A way to fight your traffic tickets. The paper was awarded a special prize of 400 dollars that the author did not have to pay to the state of California."

According to Huffington Post, in making his case, Krioukov wrote that a police officer can perceive a car as not having stopped - even though it really did stop - if three different criteria are met:

"(1) the observer measures not the linear but angular speed of the car; (2) the car decelerates and subsequently accelerates relatively fast; and (3) there is a short-time obstruction of the observer's view of the car by an external object, e.g., another car, at the moment when both cars are near the stop sign."

The four-page paper is filled with equations and graphs.

Krioukov argued that the officer, watching at an angle about 100 feet away, confused the car's actual (or linear) speed with its angular speed - the rate at which it seemed to go by.

He went on to mention that if you'd like an analogy, think of yourself on a railroad platform as the express roars past. As the train approaches in the distance, it doesn't seem to move much, but as it passes you - going no faster - it certainly seems to race by.

Krioukov has claimed that he did stop and restart quickly, and the officer missed it.

He also insisted that there was another car blocking the officer's view at the moment of truth. He was driving a Toyota Yaris, a subcompact, and something bigger was in the lane next to him as he jammed on the brakes.

He also explained in his paper that why did he jam on the brakes.

"The author/defendant (D.K.) ... was badly sick with cold on that day. In fact, he was sneezing while approaching the stop sign. As a result he involuntary pushed the brakes very hard."

But Physics Central, which first reported this story, said Krioukov concluded with a challenge: "I want to ask the readership to please find the flaw in the argument." (ANI)