Terence Tao

So we solved the problem after two years.

But if we hadn't had that initial false dawn of nearly solving the problem, we would have given up by month two or something and worked on an easier problem.

If we had known it would take two years, I'm not sure we would have started the project.

Sometimes actually having the incorrect, it's like Columbus traveling in the New World, the incorrect version of the measurement of the size of the Earth.

He thought he was going to find a new trade route to India.

Or at least that was how he sold it in his prospectus.

I mean, it could be that he secretly knew.

Yeah, I think different athleticians have different levels of emotional investment in what they do.

I mean, I think for some people it's just a job.

You know, you have a problem and if it doesn't work out, you go on the next one.

Yeah, so the fact that you can always move on to another problem, it reduces the emotional connection.

I mean, there are cases, you know, so there are certain problems that are what are called mathematical diseases where we just latch on to that one problem and they spend years and years

thinking about nothing but that one problem.

And, um, you know, maybe the, the career suffers and so forth.

But how could this big win, this will, you know, once I, once I finish this problem, I will, I will make up for all the years of, of, of lost opportunity.

And that's, that's, I mean, occasionally, occasionally it works, but I, um, I really don't recommend it for people without the right fortitude.

Yeah.

So I, I've never been super invested in any one problem.

Um,

One thing that helps is that we don't need to call our problems in advance.