Fermat's Library

At an introductory event for incoming students a couple of days after I arrived at Stanford for the O.R. Ph.D. program, George Dantzig offered to pay 1 dollar for every mistake anyone found in a paper he was preparing for publication.. (1/4)

He said he would pay a dollar for each mistake, whether a typo or a deep mathematical error. I read his paper and found 7 mistakes - 5 of them were typos and 2 were minor mathematical errors of things which didn't affect the flow or conclusions of the paper, (2/4)

but were not written out quite right. I went to his office to give him the list of 7 errors with no expectation I would or should be paid. He read my list, and agreed that they were all errors. (3/4)

Then he got out his wallet and started counting out 7 dollars. I said "I can't take that." He said "No, I insist." I said "O.k., thanks" and took the 7 dollars. (4/4)

It makes one wonder how he might have fared had he known they were open problems.

On another note, I used to have a professor who sneaked unsolved problems in worksheets. I remember spending hours on one of them, finally googling it, and discovering that it was unsolved. Bad memories.

Imagine doing something this impressive by mistake. I can’t do anything even remotely impressive on purpose.