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Re:The Firing Squad Problem by Casseres on Saturday February 08, 2014 @01:05AM (#7200434)
When you keep presenting a supposedly unsolvable problem to people who don't know it, then you might get lucky. George Dantzig was one such person. He arrived late to class, saw some problems on the board, assumed they were homework, and solved them. He wasn't constrained by the common thought that these were "unsolvable".
Re:The Firing Squad Problem by georgecmu on Saturday February 08, 2014 @10:35AM (#7201406)
They were not "unsolvable", they were simply not solved yet (at the time Dantzig saw them on the blackboard).

http://www.snopes.com/college/homework/unsolvable.asp

Re:The Firing Squad Problem by benaiah on Saturday February 08, 2014 @06:05PM (#7203268)
Did you read the comment? He said they were considered unsolvable at the time, not that they were unsolvable. Of course they're solvable - they were solved.
Re:The Firing Squad Problem by georgecmu on Tuesday February 11, 2014 @12:09PM (#7218686)
That is precisely my point. They were not considered "unsolvable" (i.e. impossible to solve), they were considered "unsolved" (i.e. not solved yet) and were presented as such. Do you really need me to explain distinctions in meaning here?