| ▲ | parl_match 16 hours ago | |
> I learned on Monday that he had spent the entire weekend trying and failing to prove it. I, on the other hand, had put all my energy into finding a counterexample and had one within an hour. He spent an entire weekend before having the wisdom to pause, and let someone else contribute their time to finding a counter. | ||
| ▲ | Dove 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | |
This was back when the internet was mostly chain emails and personal web pages, being unreachable once you went home for the weekend was perfectly normal and expected, and automatically thinking the worst of people was not a common form of public performance art. ;) | ||
| ▲ | jibal 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | |
> having the wisdom Ahem. > On one particular Friday afternoon, he stated a conjecture that he hoped was true, and invited us to try to help him prove or disprove it. It was a parallel effort ... we don't know how many people were working on it that weekend. And since the professor wanted it to be true and presumably believed that it was true, why the heck should he wait for students of unknown number and ability to find a counterexample that he didn't think existed? | ||