When studying statistics at UC Berkeley in 1947, doctoral candidate George Dantzig arrived late for class one day. He saw two problems on the blackboard, which he assumed were homework, and copied them down. Feeling they were harder than usual, it took him a few days to solve them. Only when excited Professor Neyman rushed to Georges’ house and banged on his door, did he learn that what he thought was homework were in fact two of the most famous unsolved statistical problems.

Dantzig was not constrained or intimidated by what he would have believed to be his limits – if he had known the problems were not homework, but were in fact the two most famous unsolved statistical problems that existed, how do you think the story would have ended?