Warp wrote:
> Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>>   It probably is indeed a big problem that some people seem incapable of
>> seeing the big picture, the generic rules behind the specific examples,
> 
>   Then there's the other extreme of people, who are really good at it.
> Like that mathematician (I forget his name, but one of the famous ones)
> who was in grade school and the teacher told the students to sum all the
> numbers from 1 to 100, to keep them busy for at least half an hour, and
> practice summation. This guy gives the correct in far less than a minute,
> and the teacher is amazed.

That would be Gauss if I remember correctly.  This sort of ability to 
correctly generalize things seems to be to be at the core of 
mathematical and scientific ability.  It's unfortunate that it seems to 
be so difficult to fully teach it, although there certainly is an aspect 
of innate ability that complicates it (I mean, Gauss' ability certainly 
wasn't due to that teacher's excellence).

>   Unfortunately not many people have that kind of deduction power at
> that age (or at any age).

Well, he is called the "prince of mathematicians"

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