Providence has nothing good or high in store for one who does not resolutely aim at something high or good. A purpose is the eternal condition of success. ↗
It could be that the methods needed to take the next step may simply be beyond present day mathematics. Perhaps the methods I needed to complete the proof would not be invented for a hundred years. ↗
Perhaps the methods I needed to complete the proof would not be invented for a hundred years. So even if I was on the right track, I could be living in the wrong century. ↗
Then when I reached college I realized that many people had thought about the problem during the 18th and 19th centuries and so I studied those methods. ↗
We've lost something that's been with us for so long, and something that drew a lot of us into mathematics. But perhaps that's always the way with math problems, and we just have to find new ones to capture our attention. ↗
When you're obsessive, like me, searching for something unattainable can become unhealthy... it's like falling through the air and grabbing at the clouds. ↗