Something everyone learns in Physics lessons at school is that light is refracted and reflected at the interface between air and water.

After ten years, Prof. Raimar Wulkenhaar from the University of Münster's Mathematical Institute and his colleague Dr. Erik Panzer from the University of Oxford have solved a mathematical equation which was considered to be unsolvable.

Hours of contemplation, approaching a solution in small steps, and a healthy scepticism towards computer-generated results.

Physicists and material scientists have succeeded in constructing a motor and an energy storage device from one single component. They used an elastic polymer fibre closed into a ring that was made to rotate on application of an external energy supply.