Google researcher, long out of math, cracks devilish problem about sets
> Still, for some of the authors of the follow-up papers, getting to 38% was relatively straightforward, and they wondered why Gilmer didn’t just do it himself. The simplest explanation turned out to be the correct one: After more than a half-decade out of math, Gilmer just didn’t know how to do some of the technical analytic work required to pull it off.<p>> “I was a bit rusty, and to be honest, I was stuck,” Gilmer said. “But I was eager to see where the community would take it.”<p>> Yet Gilmer thinks the same circumstances that left him out of practice probably made his proof possible in the first place.<p>This reminds me of the principle of Shoshin: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin</a><p>The idea that the mindset of a beginner can sometimes find insight where the mind of an expert cannot, and that experts should cultivate thinking like a beginner in some instances.