100年以前有一个大数学家分析过，他说你做了很复杂的努力，不出结果甚至很沮丧的时候，你常常不可避免地要休息一下子。

I turned my attention to the study of some arithmetical questions apparently without much success and without a suspicion of any connection with my preceding researches. Disgusted with my failure, I went to spend a few days at the seaside and thought of something else. One morning, walking on the bluff, the idea came to me, with just the same characteristics of brevity, suddenness and immediate certainty, that the arithmetic transformations of indefinite ternary quadratic forms were identical with those of non-Euclidian geometry.

The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, the Value of Science, Science and Method, Henri Poincare

另有一个问题请教,
物理方程的进化,麦克斯韦方程->爱因斯坦方程->杨-米尔斯方程->标准理论,
标准理论发了二十多个诺奖,在某处读到过,杨说自己不喜欢对称破缺的概念,失去了在标准理论做贡献的机会。
不知道他是否介绍过为什么不喜欢对称破缺?这是不是他研究人生的最大失败呢?开了一个头,放弃了,没有搞下去!不知你怎么看。