During a mathematics course at Columbia University, a student fell asleep and woke up to the sound of his classmates talking. As the lesson ended, he noticed the lecturer had written two problems on the whiteboard. He assumed these were homework assignments, so he copied them into his notepad to tackle later.
When he first attempted the problems, he found them quite difficult. However, he persevered, spending hours in the library gathering references and studying until he was able to solve one of the problems, though it was challenging.
To his surprise, the lecturer didn’t ask about the homework in the next class. Curious, the student stood up and asked, "Doctor, why didn’t you ask about the assignment from the previous lecture?" The lecturer replied, "Required? It wasn’t mandatory. I was simply presenting examples of mathematical problems that science and scientists had not yet solved." Shocked, the student responded, "But I solved one of them in four papers!"
The solution he discovered was eventually credited to him and documented at Columbia University. The four papers he wrote on the issue are still on display at the institution. The key reason the student was able to solve the problem was that he didn’t hear the lecturer say, "No one has found a solution." Instead, he believed it was a problem worth solving and approached it without frustration, ultimately succeeding.
This story serves as a reminder: don't listen to those who tell you that you can't achieve something, as many young people today are surrounded by negativity and doubt. Some people intentionally plant seeds of failure and frustration.
You have the power to achieve your goals, overcome obstacles, and fulfill your aspirations. Simply trust in God and keep trying.
The student was George Dantzig, and the problem came from Math Stack Exchange.
"Dantzig demonstrated that, in the context of Student's t-test, the only way to create a hypothesis test whose power is independent of the standard deviation is to use an absurd test that always has an equal probability of rejecting or failing to reject, which, of course, is not practical."
