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PROFESSOR: You
know, to be honest,

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for the most part, I
did what I had to do,

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went through the
standard process--

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generally, I was-- it didn't
take me long to do that--

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until I finally ran into
an eighth grade teacher who

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basically realized
that I was pretty

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bored by the standard
problems in the class

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and was able to get through
it without much trouble,

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and he gave me the opportunity
to do some work on my own,

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and gave me problems
to work on my own

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that were not in the textbook
and were very unlike anything

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I've ever seen.

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And then he convinced me to--

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at that time, there
weren't all these contests

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that I mentioned, but
there was one in Colorado.

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And he convinced me
to try and take it.

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And, you know, I thought
I was pretty smart,

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as a lot of young teenagers
do, and took the test.

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And most of the
tests, I found easy,

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but there were a few
problems on there

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that stunned me because
they seemed like totally

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simple trivial problems.

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But I had no idea
how to solve them.

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I didn't even know
how to start even

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thinking about the problem, and
that actually both, you know,

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sort of annoyed me, but
it also intrigued me

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that there were problems out
there that clearly people

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expected you to be
able to figure out.

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But I no idea how to do it.

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And I can actually even remember
the problem that stumped me.

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I ended up spending a
good chunk of the test

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just trying to figure this
problem out and of course

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did very, very
poorly as a result.

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But I couldn't let go of it.

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It was you have a child's
toy that's made up of cubes,

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and each of these
cubes is painted

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with six different colors.

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Each side is a different
color-- same six colors

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are used for all the cubes.

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And the question was simply,
how many-- and all the cubes

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are different, so no--
you pick up two cubes.

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You can't rotate one to make
it the same as another one.

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And the question was how
many cubes are there?

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And I thought about it,
and I thought about it,

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and I thought about it.

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And I couldn't come
up with a good answer

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in the course of
the test, but that's

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one of the questions we
answer in the course.

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And now I can give you
a very simple answer.