Solving the Unsolvable
I thought it was an urban legend; the story of the student who mistakes a pair of ‘unsolvable’ maths problems for his homework assignment and solves them. It has been used as an example of the power of positive thinking. If you do not know that a problem is unsolvable then you have a better chance of solving it.
I discovered that it is based in truth. It happened in 1939 to the American mathematician, George Dantzig (1914 - 2005) when he was a graduate student. Here is the story in his own words:
‘It happened because during my first year at Berkeley I arrived late one day to one of Neyman’s classes. On the blackboard were two problems which I assumed had been assigned for homework. I copied them down. A few days later I apologized to Neyman for taking so long to do the homework–the problems seemed to be a little harder to do than usual. I asked him if he still wanted the work. He told me to throw it on his desk. I did so reluctantly because his desk was covered with such a heap of papers that I feared my homework would be lost there forever. About six weeks later, one Sunday morning about eight o’clock, Anne and I were awakened by someone banging on our front door. It was Neyman. He rushed in with papers in hand, all excited: “I’ve just written an introduction to one of your papers. Read it so I can send it out right away for publication.” For a minute I had no idea what he was talking about. To make a long story short, the problems on the blackboard which I had solved thinking they were homework were in fact two famous unsolved problems in statistics. That was the first inkling I had that there was anything special about them.’
Here is the link describing the way the myth has developed on Snopes.
Paul Sloane
Tags: dantzig, math, maths, myth, positive, problem, solve, thinking, unsovlable, urban