"All problems have a shape and a form. To solve them, we have to first understand them."

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"The word genius is thrown around casually, but there are very few people who actually deserve the moniker like Claude Shannon. He thought differently, and he thought playfully.

"One of the subtle causes behind what manifested as such genius, however, was the way he attacked problems. He didn’t just formulate a question and then look for answers, but he was methodological in developing a process to help him see beyond what was in sight.

"His problems were different from many of the problems we are likely to deal with, but the template and its reasoning can be generalized to some degree, and when it is, it may just help us think sharper, too."

Article: Claude Shannon: How a Genius Solves Problems