No, I didn't mean helps problem solving as in the next Hawking, I mean problem solving as in telling someone they need to re-pack a shipment to hold 14 products instead of 9 and see if they can think through how to do it. I didn't want to use an example that had numbers, but I hope you get the example. Kids have a hard time slowing down and building a logical progression of how to attack any kind of problem. Anyway, maybe algebra isn't the best way to teach this, or is too boring to make up for the good stuff it does do, but when I work with someone all I want is for them to be resourceful and good at figuring out how to do something and I do think algebra helps with that training.