Math Professor Avoids ticket with Science

Who says math isn’t useful in your everyday life? Physicist Dmitri Krioukov managed to get off of a $400.00 ticket for running a stop sign thanks to him mathematically calculating “the proof of innocence.” Basically, his argument was that the cop who claimed to have seen him run the stop sign couldn’t possibly have seen it.

Krioukov based his argument on three factors:

One: because the cop was watching the intersection at an angle, Krioukov’s car appeared to be going faster than it actually was.

Two: Krioukov had a cold, and sneezed while approaching the intersection. That meant that he stepped on the break quickly, before taking off again at a fair clip (he doesn’t argue that he has a bit of a lead foot).

Three: a car obscured the cop’s view of the intersection. That means that he couldn’t see Krioukov pull up and stop at the intersection, and assumed he blew through it due to his (incorrectly guessed) high speed.

Not leaving his case on the basis of those three logical points, however, Krioukov went about verifying his theory, calculating acceleration and deceleration rates as well as vision angles and potential speeds. In the end he presented to the judge a mathematical proof that it was possible for the scenario he mentioned to have occurred.

Reportedly, both the judge and the cop who prosecuted him agreed with him, though whether it was because they thought he was right or they were blinded by science is not known.

The Verge Photo by : Bradley Gordon