It would be interesting to see a list of solutions to problems that were that were previously thought, e.g. by almost all experts in the field, to be clearly impossible i.e. insoluble.
One that occurs to me is public key encryption. I.e. the very notion that you could send a message in code where anyone can see the encoded message and know how you’re encrypting it, yet can’t decode it.
Relativity may be another case—specifically weird things about e.g. simultaneity and time dilation, which seemed to be more or less logical impossibilities. While that was a discovery as much as a solution (i.e. theory), the solution was extremely unobvious.
Even things like biological limits which turned out to be mental (the idea a 4 minute mile was impossible, for instance).
I wonder if we just told people the problem was solved, and ask them to find the solution, would the mere fact of confidence there is a solution lead to greater chances of finding a solution? I remember the story of the mathematician to which this exact thing happened (he accidentally was assigned a famous unsolved problem as homework, and solved it).
Someone feel free to correct if that was a myth or a real incident.
It would be interesting to see a list of solutions to problems that were that were previously thought, e.g. by almost all experts in the field, to be clearly impossible i.e. insoluble.
One that occurs to me is public key encryption. I.e. the very notion that you could send a message in code where anyone can see the encoded message and know how you’re encrypting it, yet can’t decode it.
Relativity may be another case—specifically weird things about e.g. simultaneity and time dilation, which seemed to be more or less logical impossibilities. While that was a discovery as much as a solution (i.e. theory), the solution was extremely unobvious.
Even things like biological limits which turned out to be mental (the idea a 4 minute mile was impossible, for instance).
I wonder if we just told people the problem was solved, and ask them to find the solution, would the mere fact of confidence there is a solution lead to greater chances of finding a solution? I remember the story of the mathematician to which this exact thing happened (he accidentally was assigned a famous unsolved problem as homework, and solved it).
Someone feel free to correct if that was a myth or a real incident.