This question relates to the nature of time-planning. I have not been able to find anything that would even come close to answering my question. Therefore, I want to find out, if there exists a methodology or are [my examples] just anecdotes, that do not lead anywhere.
I have two of them, one fictional, and one non-fictional:
- In 'The Devotion of Suspect X' by Higashino, there is a mathematician charachter called Ishigami. He mentions in the book, that he is working on a certain 'math problem', and that he calculated that coming up with a solution would take him 20 more years.
- Marvin Minsky, an American computer scientist (now deceased) has mentioned in a keynote panel called 'The Golden Age', that he had a university friend in a maths department. This friend would work on a problem, that would supposedly take 9 years to be solved, 'but he finished it in 8'. (I am sorry, but I was unable to come up with the mathematician's name).
I can understand time planning for buildings and computer systems, because you have to build something big. However working on something as abstract as math itself, where you have to 'figure something out', seems a totally different task to me.
Let's consider my 2 sources are strong enough to conclude that mathematicians are able to plan ahead for multiple years on a single problem. How do you approach this planning?
Thank you for your time.