How The Great Minds In History Discovered Solutions To Insurmountable Problems
What if I told you that some of your most pressing problems could be solved?
Would you believe me?
If not, then you’d better keep reading to discover a secret from history that I’m about to reveal to you.
What if one of the proven secrets to success is that some who succeed do so because they continue just a little bit longer than others?
What if they just push a tiny bit harder than the rest of us?
There is evidence that this has been true in some cases throughout history.
They’re Whispering A Secret
Can you do me a favor? Lean in a little closer for a second.
I want you to hear something.
It’s a secret that two of the greatest minds who ever lived want to whisper to you.
Listen closely…
‘It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
– Albert Einstein
“If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.”
–Isaac Newton
Did you hear it?
Did you hear their confession about why they really succeeded?
Did you hear why they said they’re considered smart by so many people?
Someone Did It Again
If you think this is just some old truth that doesn’t apply anymore, then you’re going to want to hear this story.
Because someone has stumbled onto this secret again.
I read an article yesterday on Wired.com about an unknown mathematician who has made a discovery that has eluded some of the greatest mathematical minds for hundreds of years.
Yitang Zhang, a Chinese immigrant with a doctorate from Purdue University, who is a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire, has written and submitted an unbelievable paper.
It’s unbelievable because it reveals a discovery that will allow the math world to take huge step forward in understanding one of mathematics’ oldest problems.
It’s a problem called “the twin primes conjecture”.
What in the world is that? I didn’t know either, so I looked it up on Britannica.com.
It says that it’s believed that there are an infinite amount of pairs of primes that differ by 2. For example, 3 and 5, 5 and 7, 11 and 13, and 17 and 19 are all twin primes.
Then Britannica.com says this, “As numbers get larger, primes become less frequent and twin primes rarer still. Greek mathematician Euclid (flourished c. 300 bce) gave the oldest known proof that there exist an infinite number of primes, and he conjectured that there are an infinite number of twin primes.”
But the problem has always been that no one could prove this.
Many people have tried to do this for hundreds of years, but they all had the same problem.
The problem was that no one could rule out the possibility that, as the Wired.com article says, “the gaps between primes grow and grow, eventually exceeding any particular bound.”
How did Zhang solve the problem no one else could?
You might assume that he used some special method that no one ever thought of before. But he didn’t.
He started on his road to this discovery using the findings in a paper that was written eight years ago by three mathematicians.
It was a paper that many top mathematicians knew about.
In that paper the three authors came extremely close to the answer, but they still fell short.
Other mathematicians tried to take those findings and solve the problem, but they couldn’t.
So what did Zhang do?
He Used The Secret
Wired.com explains it this way, “Without communicating with the field’s experts, Zhang started thinking about the problem. After three years, however, he had made no progress. ‘I was so tired,’ he said.
“To take a break, Zhang visited a friend in Colorado last summer. There, on July 3, during a half-hour lull in his friend’s backyard before leaving for a concert, the solution suddenly came to him. ‘I immediately realized that it would work,’ he said.”
Did you catch it? Did you see what he did?
He thought and worked on the problem for three years.
He didn’t just think about it for a couple weeks. He didn’t just take a couple months. He took three years!
Then when he finally took a break, it was like his subconscious just took those three years of chewing on the problem and finally said, “Ah ha! I’ve got it!”
Being Stubborn Isn’t A Virtue
I want to clarify something, so you don’t misunderstand me.
I’m not saying that being stubborn is a virtue.
Of course, sometimes the best thing to do is give up and “stop beating a dead horse.”
I’m not saying that you’ll always come up with an answer if you just don’t give up.
That’s not true.
But here’s the deal: most people give up too soon.
The problem that most people have is not that they’re too persistent.
Their problem is that they give up way too easily.
They try to work through a problem for a little while.
They think about it a little.
But if the solution doesn’t come within that window of effort, they give up.
Two Important Questions
1. Will you always come up with the answer to every problem if you just persevere? No!
2. But let me ask you this question: Will you ever come up with the answer if you don’t persevere? No!
The answer ONLY comes through persistence.
That’s the proven way it’s happened throughout history.
*Think about it this way: If it DIDN’T take persistence to come up with an answer to the problem, then you (or someone else), would have come up with it a long time ago!
Look, if you are the rare person, who has the problem of being too persistent and sticking with something too long, then you can ignore everything you just read.
But if you’re like most people, who give up much sooner than they should, then consider what you’ve read and stick with it just a little longer.
You never know what could happen.
You might finally come across the breakthrough that changes things, not only for you, but for others who have been dealing with the same problem.
P.S. There are now only 9 sets of my ebooks that are available for FREE through my special offer.
Click here to read my post from yesterday to discover how you can get one of the remaining sets.
Photo by blaahhi
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