David Goldenheim and Dan Litchfield thought they would surprise their math teacher. The teacher, Charles Dietrich, had presented the eighth-graders with an age-old math puzzle. He wished them luck but warned they didn't have a prayer of figuring it out. The dynamic duo set to work, hoping for some extra credit.
Instead they made math history. The students, who were taking a 1995 summer class at Greens Farms Academy in Connecticut, hit upon a brand-new way to solve the problem. The Greek mathematician Euclid found the only other known solution 2,500 years ago.
With a little extra help from a tool Euclid didn't have--a computer program called Geometer's Sketchpad--David and Dan created a new system for cutting any line into slices of exactly the same length.
"When I saw the picture of what they had done, it came to me in a flash," says Dietrich. "I've never had students do original work."
The boys were amazed to find their work was important. "It wasn't like we woke up one morning and decided to solve this," says Dan. They called their find the GLaD construction, using the initials of their last names and Dietrich's.
As word of their achievement spread, David and Dan, now 16, became superstars of the math world. They have been invited to speak at conferences around the U.S., including one in April.
What is it like for kids to teach a new trick to math experts? "It's weird if you're the world's leading experts on something," says David. "It's an amazing experience."
Being part of his students' discovery, says proud teacher Dietrich, "is like taking Cub Scouts camping and having one return with a huge nugget of gold."