BEREA, Ky. (LEX 18) — A Berea College student is having an international impact by helping physics students around the world learn through a variety of online academic platforms.
Sophomore Aliaksandr “Alex” Melnichenka traces his love of science back to his childhood.
“When I was eight-years-old, I tried to assemble a telescope from parts, like attach mirrors together to get the focused image of the moon,” Melnichenka said.
As a native of Belarus, that telescope introduced Melnichenka to a world of equations relating to math and physics. It didn’t take long for him to join a club to compete in the physics Olympiad. The only problem? Melnichenka had no teacher.
“I decided to create the biggest national physics Olympiad platform,” he said, “So, other people from our club could prepare for the physics Olympiads.”
Melnichenka built belpho.org to help his club prepare for the Olympiads. The website became a resource for students all across the country to prepare for the competition as well. It’s that experience that inspired another project – savchenkosolutions.com.
“In the post-Soviet countries, there is a widely known problem textbook named Savchenko Problems in Physics, and for 30 years, no solutions existed,” Melnichenka explained.
The Savchenko Solutions platform is collaborative, involving people from around the world. The Savchenko textbook needed translating, and Melnichenka was up to the task.
“Soon after we translated the textbook on the English language, the United States became the top three most popular countries that uses our website,” he said.
Melnichenka is majoring in physics and mathematics at Berea College now, with a minor in computer science. He enjoys learning, and seeing others learn.
“For me the most captivating part is when I see the people who discuss the problems that they cannot solve and another person on the website shares his own thoughts, and the other person understands how the problem could be solved,” he said. “That’s the most interesting part, when I see the real impact on how it helps.”
Melnichenka shared that over winter break, he visited Cambridge, Massachusetts to work with professors at MIT. He also turned down a monetary offer for his Savchenko Solutions platform in order to keep it free under Creative Commons.