Kumon Math and English Center - Basel Gundeli

Even the smallest hands can do big things with numbers!

Sometimes the only limits our children have are the ones we assume for them. Give them space, they’ll do the rest.

In 1939, a legendary misunderstanding at UC Berkeley fundamentally changed the course of mathematical history. * George Dantzig*, then a graduate student, arrived late to a statistics lecture taught by the renowned professor Jerzy Neyman. On the blackboard, Neyman had scrawled two examples of famously unsolved statistical problems to illustrate the current limits of the field. Unaware of the lecture's context, Dantzig assumed the equations were a standard homework assignment and diligently copied them down before heading home.
A few days later, Dantzig submitted his work directly to Neyman, apologizing for the delay because the problems "seemed to be a little harder than usual". It wasn't until six weeks later that a stunned Neyman arrived at Dantzig's house, eager to publish the work. Dantzig had inadvertently provided proofs for two open statistical theorems that had stumped the world's greatest minds for years. This accidental breakthrough later served as the core of his doctoral thesis and even inspired the plot of the film Good Will Hunting. His story remains a powerful testament to the idea that our limits are often defined by what we believe to be impossible; by not knowing the "homework" was impossible, Dantzig was free to simply solve it.