〈 Berger | Dillon 〉

i figured this out when i was an undergrad and thought i found something new and then when i showed my professor he said "ah, this was one of my favorites as an undergrad as well" the end

When I was a youth I proved that the chance of two large numbers being relatively prime was 6/pi^2. I was very excited and tried to publish this, but of course it was known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprime_integers#Probability_of_coprimality … You rediscover old stuff, then newer stuff, then finally discover something new.

In contrast, one of my teachers expressly cautioned me against spending time sleepwalking into others' results. Instead he recommended learning about the state-of-the-art of a subject and the current open problems. Too much is known, and life is too short.