Transcription
Someone had resolved this problem 300 years ago, but no one had ever seen the proof. No one knew if there was a proof. And people ever since had looked for the proof.
And here was a problem that I, a 10-year-old, could understand that none of the great mathematicians in the past had been able to resolve. The first seven years I'd worked on this problem. I loved every minute of it. However hard it had been, there had been there had been setbacks. Often there had been um things that had seemed insurmountable, but it was a kind of private um and very personal battle I was engaged in.
In September, I decided to go back and look one more time at the original structure of flack and kifagen to try [music] and pinpoint exactly why it wasn't working, try and formulate it precisely. One can never really do that in mathematics, but I just wanted to set my mind at rest um that it really couldn't be made to work.
At the beginning of September, I was sitting here [music] at this desk when suddenly totally unexpectedly I had this incredible revelation. It was the [music] most uh the most important moment of my working life. It was so indescribably beautiful. It was so simple and so elegant. And I just stared in disbelief for 20 minutes. Then during the day, I walked around the department. I'd keep coming back to my desk and looking to see it was still there. It [music] was still there.
Almost what seemed to be stopping the method of flack and kivar was exactly what would make horizontally theory. My original approach to the problem from three years before would make exactly that work. So out of the ashes seem [music] to rise the true answer to the problem.
So the first night I went back and stepped on it. I checked through it again the next morning and by 11:00 I satisfied and I went down told my wife I've got it. I think I've got it. Found it. And uh it was so unexpected. She I think she thought I was talking about a children's toy or something. I said got what? and said, "I fixed my proof. I've cut it."
There's no other problem that will mean the same to me. I had this very rare privilege of being able to pursue in my adult life what had been my childhood dream. Right. I know it's a rare privilege, but if if one can do this, it's more rewarding than anything I can imagine.