A Homework Story
You never know what you will learn when you do your homework, and you may be smarter than you think. My friend told me this interesting story about a math student.
One day, the student, George, arrived late for a university math class. When he went in and sat at his desk, he saw that there were two math problems written on the board. He thought that these were homework problems, so he quickly wrote them down. Later, at home, he worked very hard to solve these math problems. They were very difficult. It took him several days to finish. Finally, he took his completed homework to the professor's office. He apologized for finishing so late. The professor just said to put the homework on his desk.
Early on a Sunday morning about six weeks later, George heard a knock on his front door. It was the professor! He was very excited, and was shouting, "Congratulations!" At first, George was confused. Eventually, he understood what happened. The two problems that were on the board in class were not for homework. They were two famous problems in statistics that no one ever solved! The professor only wrote them on the board as examples of unsolved problems.
Because George was late to class, he didn't know that the problems were unsolved, and he didn't think they were impossible. He thought there must be a solution, so he worked until he found it. Of course, the professor was very impressed by George's intelligence. His solutions to the problems were later published. I think the lesson in this story is to always do your homework!