thought of something else. One morning, walking on the bluff, the idea came to me, with just the same characteristics of brevity, suddenness and immediate certainty.” The mathematician went on to write about several other instances in which he came up with brilliant solutions entirely by chance.
In each of these moments, he came to his conclusions while not thinking about the problems. Actually, let me qualify this: He was very much thinking about these problems, just not using his conscious brain to help.
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