A professor I had in college had an anecdote about how his first publication was an open problem he accidentally solved in the process of doing his homework and he only found out long after when the professor cited it as [him] (unpublished).
He also seemed to, precisely once every semester, assign a problem among the homework problems that was, as written, an open problem in the field, only to, a couple days before the deadline, send out a clarification apologizing.
Having been around there a couple years, I always suspected that these two things were not unrelated.
He also seemed to, precisely once every semester, assign a problem among the homework problems that was, as written, an open problem in the field, only to, a couple days before the deadline, send out a clarification apologizing.
Having been around there a couple years, I always suspected that these two things were not unrelated.