Not directly related but there is the story of George Dantzig, a graduate student at Berkeley.
Arriving late to a class he quickly jotted down two equations left on the board, thinking they were homework. Several days later he hands the solutions to his professor. When his professor finally marks the problems he realises that George just proved two statistical theorems which had been unsolved up to that point.
Arriving late to a class he quickly jotted down two equations left on the board, thinking they were homework. Several days later he hands the solutions to his professor. When his professor finally marks the problems he realises that George just proved two statistical theorems which had been unsolved up to that point.
http://www.snopes.com/college/homework/unsolvable.asp#zZx2h5...