Problem-Solving Process Quotes

When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

A problem is a question you haven't yet answered to a level that has fulfilled you.

No solution can be more elegant than the problem at which it is aimed allows.

I don't look at a problem and put variables in there that don't affect it.

We need to be in the open mode when we are pondering a problem, but, once we come up with a solution, we must then switch to the closed mode to implement it.

If I can bring some light to bear on problems like that, I feel that people will be enlightened not only on the question but also on a way of approaching such questions.

I get so engaged when I have a problem you cannot solve that I just cannot break away from what I am doing - I keep thinking and thinking and cannot stop.

The principle of Sturgeon's Razor states that the simplest answer to any problem is 90% crap.

Once a problem is solved, its simplicity is amazing.

Problems, however, are rarely solved on the spur of the moment. They must be organized and dissected, then key issues isolated and defined. A period of gestation then sets in, during which these issues are mulled over. You put them in your mind and consciously or unconsciously work at them at odd hours of the day or night - even at work. It is somewhat analogous to trying to place a name on the face of someone you've met before. Often the solution to a problem comes to you in much the same way you eventually recall the name.

Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have - whether it's something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bednet.

I think that there's a power in that [information through tweets and sound bites ]. There's also a danger, what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isn't the same as the process required to actually solve the problem.

The fact of the matter is, if you have to have a process, I think, to figure out how to make everything work together, you just don't get that. But maybe there's a way to do it.

My biggest kick in music -playing or writing- is when I have a problem. Without a problem to solve, how much interest do you take in anything?

The real value of science is in the getting, and those who have tasted the pleasure of discovery alone know what science is. A problem solved is dead. A world without problems to be solved would be devoid of science.

It is better to have a bad method than to have none.

The definition of a good mathematical problem is the mathematics it generates rather than the problem itself.

If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.

You have to trust your instincts and know that the right question or the right answer will come to you. You don’t always have to have the solution to the problem; sometimes it’s very interesting to watch somebody go through the process of solving the problem, but it’s got to be truthful.