Power of positive thinking

Here's a story about George Dantzig - the famed mathematician who's contributions to Operations Research and systems engineering have made him immortal 

Truth in urban legends

An event in Dantzig's life became the origin of a famous urban legend in 1939 while he was a graduate student at UC Berkeley. Near the beginning of a class for which Dantzig was late, professor Jerzy Neyman wrote four examples of famously unsolved statistics problems on the blackboard. When Dantzig arrived, he assumed that four problems were a homework assignment and wrote two of them down. According to Dantzig, the problems "seemed to be a little harder than usual". But working without any thoughts of limitation, had solved the two problems that had stumped mathematicians for thousands of years. He handed in completed solutions for two, still believing that they were an assignment that was overdue. Six weeks later, Dantzig received a visit from an excited professor Neyman, who had prepared one of Dantzig's solutions for publication in a mathematical journal. Years later another researcher, Abraham Wald, was preparing to publish a paper which arrived at a conclusion for the second problem, and included Dantzig as its co-author when he learned of the earlier solution. 

This story began to spread, and was used as a motivational lesson demonstrating the power of positive thinking. Over time Dantzig's name was removed and facts were altered, but the basic story persisted in the form of an urban legend, and as an introductory scene in the movie Good Will Hunting. 

Simply out, George solved the problems because he didn't know he couldn't 

You are not limited to the life you now live. It has been accepted by you as the best you can do at this moment. Any time you're ready to go beyond the limitations currently in your life, you're capable of doing that by choosing different thoughts. All you must do is figure out how you can do it, not whether or not your can. And once you have made your mind up to do it, Its amazing how your mind begins to figure out how. 

A person is limited only by the thoughts that he/she chooses. 

Reference: Wikipedia

Issue BG79 Oct07