BEST AND BRIGHTEST: Particle physics intrigue Rampart student

TO OUR READERS: This is one in a series of stories featuring The Gazette's Best & Brightest high school seniors, Class of 2009.

Chris Schuch's dad gave him a book four years ago that changed his life. Titled "The Elegant Universe," it hooked him on physics. "It talked about physics in an easy-to-understand way. It got me really interested."

Today Schuch's passion is particle physics, "the extremely exciting field" he plans on making his career.  

"I see him making a big discovery," said his friend and Rampart High School classmate Scott Barton. "He came up with some theories in class using his own equations and later in the year we learned they were true."

"My idea was that particles and objects can never go faster than the speed of light because they would become black holes as they approached light speed as a result of the increase in their relativistic mass due to their high velocity," Schuch wrote in his Best & Brightest application.

To express these thoughts Schuch came up with an equation that he later discovered was the Schwarzschild radius, or gravitational radius, expressed in different terms, he said.

Schuch wrote that his "most significant achievement to date" came later when he formulated an equation that would find the relativistic mass of a rotating disk or sphere.

"His questions always go beyond what we're learning," Barton said.  "I always wish I could've thought of those things."

"In my physics classes especially, the unknowns in the universe frustrate me immensely, and drive me to work as hard as possible so that I will be able to study and research in physics in my future," Schuch wrote.

After attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Schuch plans to continue with graduate school, research high energy particle physics and someday share his passion with either high-schoolers or university students as a teacher.

CHRISTOPHER "CHRIS" SCHUCH, Rampart High School

Parents:  Stephen Schuch and Donna Mulder

College plans:  The Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study physics

If you had a million dollars, which philanthropic organization would you form and why? "I'd spend it on education. I'd help set up schools in Third World countries."

Other details: Varsity swim team captain; UNICEF club co-founder; Politics Club co-founder; National Merit Scholarship winner;  honor roll