Conclusion in BBC's The Story of Maths, episode 4
“There are, roughly speaking, two kinds of mathematical creativity. One, akin to conquering a mountain peak, consists of solving a problem which has remained unsolved for a long time and has commanded the attention of many mathematicians. The other is exploring new territory.”
Source: Enigmas Of Chance (1985), Chapter 2, Lwów, p. 39.
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Mark Kac 17
Polish-American mathematician 1914–1984Related quotes

As quoted in The Century: A Popular Quarterly (1874) ed. Richard Watson Gilder, Vol. 7, pp. 508-509, https://books.google.com/books?id=ceYGAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA508 "Relations of Mathematics to Physics". Earlier quote without citation in Nature, Volume 8 (1873), page 450.
Also quoted partially in Michael Grossman and Robert Katz, Calculus http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/mb?a=listis;c=216746186|Non-Newtonian (1972) p. iv. ISBN 0912938013.
Lorentz (1991) " A scientist by choice". Speech by acceptance of the Kyoto Prize in 1991, cited in: Kerry Emanuel (2009) [http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/lorenz-edward.pdf Edward Norton Lorenz 1917-2008 http://eaps4.mit.edu/research/Lorenz/Miscellaneous/Scientist_by_Choice.pdf. National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir.

1850s, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society (1859)

Harold Davenport, Bryan John Birch, Heini Halberstam (1977), The collected works of Harold Davenport. p. xviii
“A real scientist solves problems, not wails that they are unsolvable.”
Source: Acorna: The Unicorn Girl

Source: Enigmas Of Chance (1985), Chapter 6, Cornell II, p. 122.

“One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer.”