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Reminds me of George Dantzig, who solved two unsolved problems in statistics because he mistook them for homework.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-unsolvable-math-proble...

I wonder how many other breakthroughs have occurred in a 'hard' problem that was thought to be 'easy'.

There's an urban legend in the Princeton physics department of professors including questions in exams that they don't know the answer to in hopes that some student might crack it.

Probably happens from time to time.

I never saw it myself since I quickly realized I wouldn't cut it as a physics major there.

When I was a math major at U. Chicago, there was at least one professor who did this.

The math pirate!

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