A 17-year-old student from Gonzaga College in Dublin has won this year’s Esat Young Scientist of the Year award for his work on a mathematics theory.
David O’Doherty’s winning project, entitled "The Distribution of the Primes and Underlying Order of Chaos" was announced by the Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern, at the awards ceremony held at the RDS this evening.
The project took on one of the great unproven conjectures of mathematics concerning the problem of the distribution of prime number ranks.
Although the entry did not successfully solve the problem, the judges were swayed by the novelty of the approach.
Chairperson of the judging panel, Ms Angela Keegan, praised the sophistication of the project’s approach.
"David’s project is very impressive, his work would be creditable from a senior mathematics undergraduate and confirms he is a mathematician of promise," she said.
Mr Ahern and the Chief Executive of ESAT group, Mr Richard Cooke, presented the Dublin student with a specially commissioned trophy and a cash prize of €1,270.