Rather than attacking a problem directly, as if pounding on a chisel to crack a nut, Grothendieck built an entire architecture of theory around the problem, so that the solution gradually became easy and natural. He likens his approach to softening the nut in water. “From time to time you rub so the liquid penetrates better, and otherwise you let time pass,” he wrote in his autobiography. “The shell becomes more flexible through weeks and months — when the time is ripe, hand pressure is enough, the shell opens like a perfectly ripened avocado!“ http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/31898/title/Sensitivity_to_the_harmony_of_things

x.ref category mathematics \ \ category theory / / algebraic topology / / Weil conjectures / /