his whole point is that specifically problems that have been held as important by consensus in the field are a finite resource. obvious example being the Clay millennium prize problems. seems like they function to shape the direction of future research into useful directions. which is to say, the process of developing a solution itself generates more useful problems.

of course thrrr are tons of problems once you remove this social consensus based filter. if i’m not mistaken Ramanujan left a book of dozens of unproven theorems, for one quick example. i don’t think that that has opened up dozens of fields of mathematical research.

> the Clay millennium prize problems

augmented Hilbert's problems of 1900.

Surely mathematicians are creative enough to ask new questions?

If not, then the next set of challenges will be to find questions to ask!