G'Day,
Just an informal survey... how many people here have ever actively tried to solve any of the "great" problems of mankind? Like you know, made a serious attempt at finding a cure for cancer, dreamt up a feasible Grand Unified Theory or brainstormed a form superluminal travel?
In second year uni (2001) I heard about the Clay Maths Institutes Millenium Prizes for solving the top 7 math problems left for the century. I spent about 2 weeks on the Riemann Zeta hypothesis, and although I learnt a lot, I didn't get too far. I found the original PDF file on my computer the other day, I thought maybe this Christmas I might give it a once over again
Cheers,
Brad