[comp.music] Blackbored

elkies@brauer.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies) (05/27/90)

In article <13647@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes:
>There is a standard joke about AI results:
>each is a solution in search of the right problem.

Actually in some disciplines (mine included) it's perfectly
respectable to first invent a neat solution and then look
for a problem to apply it to; this is one good way to
do a dissertation, bypassing some of the agonizing process
of finding a research problem, and occasionally yields
unexpected and important new results.

--Noam D. Elkies (elkies@zariski.harvard.edu)
  Department of Mathematics, Harvard University